Morning Musume – First Time

Artist: モーニング娘 (Morning Musume)
Album: ファーストタイム (First Time)
Release Date: July 8, 1998
1. Good Morning
Amusingly, the first track off this album is as very bossa nova-esque jazzy piano-type song. It’s kind of cute, until some of the girls start singing. The group parts aren’t quite as bad as some of the solo bits in the chorus, which I find hilarious because a whole bunch of people drop out at the high note in the chorus, so we get to hear one or two people strain for their life on it. Yeah, the harmonies are positively terrible. On the bright side, the song is kind of cute, but the girls have close to no energy in their performance. I do like the jazzy feel of this track and the melody, but the girls aren’t particularly interesting on this track.
2. サマーナイトタウン
Hello more terrible duet bits. Abe and Ishiguro Aya’s voice clash pretty badly at the beginning and don’t really work that well together. I do like the daikirai/daisuki parts of the opening because of how much energy the girls put into that one part of the track and how they build up on the lines by adding more and more people with eah work. The solos for the “for you!”, “I want you!” parts are decently done. I don’t particularly find the song itself that interesting, but it’s an okay track with their usual vocal problems.
3. どうにかして土曜日
Hahaha. This song amuses me with the kind of Western (…as in cowboy Westerns) sound it has. The bass line is addictive and I love the brass and string arrangement for the track. どうにかして土曜日 marks the first song that I actually like as a whole on the album. The girls mostly sing in unison throughout the song, which apparently works for their advantage as their singing isn’t quite as annoying as it usually can be. Doesn’t this make you want to go ride a horse in a cowboy hat with a lasso in hand? I know I do. Hilarity aside, this song is pretty much run by its accompaniment as the girls are pretty much the same the whole way though and sing a bit monotone and slightly out of tune with each other at times. The arrangement is fabulously awesome though.
4. モーニングコーヒー
*facepalm* I totally had a HARD GAY flashback when the girls went with their high-pitched “FUUU!” at the begining. Obviously the guy didn’t become popular until a long time afterwards. XD In any case, this song turns into a softer, laid-back track from the girls. I quite like this acoustic track, despite the girls still performing subpar in terms of their vocals. The song is rather soothing, although I can’t say the same about their singing. However, the song itself is quite well arranged in terms of the vocal lines in the track and could quite nice with some good vocals. They do perform this song well stylistically as their voices are quite soothing at times. They still need to pay attention to their general pitch and tone.
5. 夢の中
Oh god, the duet at the beginning. The girl singing in upper line needs a lot of work. It’s not pleasant at all, especially as the song goes on like this. These duet lines really reveal the girls’ poor singing very well, and it’s not fun at all as they continue to strain and struggle with basic pitch on this track. Seriously, there’s a lot of flat notes on this track, to the point where the singing is just unbearable. The bossa nova backing is cute, though? The track is just painful from start to finish. That’s a lot of straining on notes in the mid-range, even. That’s kind of embarrassing.
6. 愛の種
Aw, the chimes at the beginning are cute. Again, their group work is much more listenable than their solo work, although some of the short solo lines are passable. Because of the constant passing of the melody in the verses, the flow is rather choppy all the way through. Each of the girls have their individual troubles in the solo, which I won’t really get to other than their need to support their voices without putting too much of their breathy sound into their singing. In any case, this song is rather simplistic with the accompaniment, so the song doesn’t stand out much there, but some of the harmonies are quite nice.
7. ワガママ
Eeep, we’re back to really bad singing. Again, this song has a lot more solos, mostly done by Ishiguro Aya, Yasuda Kei and Ichii Sayaka, and they’re not particularly any good as they continue to struggle with pitch. The singing is pretty much all over the place and all I can do is cringe at the singing throughout the track. The track itself is nothing interesting as well with the repeated, soft electric guitars in the background. This song is just lacking in so many ways: in the girls’ singing, in the instrumentalists’ performances, and in the composition of the song.
8. 未来の扉
Apparently the girls are amazed by something at the beginning. I have no words for this song other than terrible. It’s not even fun in any way and the melodic lines are done in some sort of speak and have no connection to the singing parts of the track. There’s basically no flow in this track from the really bad speaking bits to the singing parts. The girls sound has convincing as a rock singing and bore me to death. Is this supposed to be a song? All I hear is really poor composition with the girls’ subpar voices. The girls attempt some scatting here, and I’m utterly confused as to why.
9. ウソつきあんた
While the main melody singing isn’t particularly good, I must say that the harmonies on this track are quite an improvement for the girls. The stuff actually blend together much better. This is a much tighter performance of harmonies from the girls. The still struggle with their singing otherwise though, and constantly go off pitch and strain for their life on a lot of notes. However, this song is much more bearable than the last few tracks, but it’s still pretty bad in terms of their vocals. At least the harmonies keep me listening a bit longer this time around.
10. さみしい日
This final track is a much softer piano ballad. The opening few solo lines are actually quite nice, despite still be rather subpar singing. Some of the girls need to project a little bit more, because all I hear is mumbling from them. Either that, or Tsunku needs to get them closer to the mic and mix them in at the same volume as some of the other girls. Some of the drastic change in dynamics are really bad. This is one instance where some of the group singing is worse than the solo singing, due to the more delicate nature of the track. It is a fairly nice ending to the album, though.
Overall –
Favourite Track: モーニングコーヒー
Morning Musume’s debut album is mediocre and really poorly sung. Tsunku isn’t even particularly a good composer at this time, because none of the songs on this album are really that interesting (albeit, not all of it is composed by him). In addition, none of the girls particularly stood out to me as I listened to the album. I can only pull out two songs on the album that I actually enjoyed as a whole, but everything else was bland and mostly poorly written. Each of them have very notable weaknesses in their singing, whether it’s their general phrasing or pitch of their singing. In general, they’re just really bad singers. Hopefully they improve with time, since this was their first album. Otherwise, if you’re looking to get into Momusu, I would recommend to stay far away from their debut. It’s no wonder I’ve never heard of any of these song titles from Momusu fans, aside from “Morning Coffee”.




















