Projects of Hello Past

Coconuts Musume

  I was sorting through  some of my old J-pop promotional Posters from back in the day, and came across a group that I hadn't thought of in YEARS- Back in the early days of Morning Musume, Tsunku’s fellow SharanQ’er Makoto tried his hand at creating a group, and decided on a Hawaii based group called COCONUTS MUSUME. Though Coconuts Musume never quite made it, several of the members continued on in Hello Project with revamped Coconuts Musume releases as well as HP sub-unit “Shuffle” groups  and became quite well-known in their own right, Ayaka, for example was a joy to watch on Hello Mornings with her “English Lessons” upon the poor Momusu girls, and demure member Mika became the most prolific of all the Coconuts Musume girls when she became a member of the zany HP Sub-unit MINIMONI!
  It was in fact Mika Todd that figures into the story I’m about to tell … Way back when I was still working at Tower Records and J-pop was all the rage, they’d created a three-rack section solely for the Japan releases and above it, board frames for two promotion posters. Those posters rotated every few months, and if someone was lucky, they were able to take them home after promotions ended if the J-pop buyer gave his blessing. 
   So anyway, back in the summer of 1999, the aforementioned Coconuts Musume “Dance and Chance” poster had been posted up, and sometime during the week, who should stroll in to Tower Records but Miss Mika Todd herself! The J-pop buyer saw her and said to me, “Hey! Let’s take down the poster and let Mika autograph it for the store!!” I thought it was a GREAT idea and ran to get a ladder and brought the mounted poster down. With the poster under arms, we caught up to Mika and asked her if she’d mind signing the Coconuts Musume poster for us, and to our delight, she smiled and said “Oh…Okay?” She seemed genuinely surprised someone recognized her, and as we handed her a permanent marker, she paused uncertainly at the poster, unsure of where to start, before laughing and saying “Well, I guess I’ll have to get used to doing this, right?” “Right!” we laughed back! 

Mika's autograph!

 We thanked her and put the poster back up into the section, until the time came for a new poster to go up, and was I surprised when the J-pop buyer came to my room and asked me if I wanted the autographed poster since I liked Hello Project stuff so much! I took it happily, and I have to say that for awhile there, with the advent of Minimoni and all, it was quite cool that I had a poster she signed for us in person! Ah, but members and groups move on and on, and over time the poster got buried under a whole slew of newer promotional items, what a surprise to uncover this gem after all these years!

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Favorite J-Pop Songs: Morning Musume / Dance Suru No Da

Decided on a whim to take along an old Morning Musume collection I’d made awhile ago with me on my errands today, and I have to say that after all these years I still can’t believe how much those songs still hold up-I love those old tunes! And going through all the hits and singles, one song that REALLY hit home and took me back was the Girls’ superb “Dance Surunoda”. MAN, how I love this song- in fact, the last time (way, way back in the day) that my friends and I had done out favorite Morning Musume “Song Rankings”, that song was listed at Number ONE. and I’ll be darned if it doesn’t STILL have the impact if had on me all those years ago!

Originally appearing on Morning Musume’s third album “Third Love Paradise” with the Generation Three Line-Up, it wasn’t until the group was already onto their Fourth Generation that they released this wonderful PV (originally for an interactive video game where the viewer could use the controls and scroll back and forth to view the girls who were singing in a formed circle), its circular dance stage and split-screen visual was such an interesting and dynamic way to watch a video!

Scrolling Version (with Subtitles!):

Never mind that for the most part, this wasn’t even the real “line-up” who originally did the song they were lipsynching to, the sheer energy and HAPPINESS exuding from the performance of this catchy Jackson Five-ish funky tune with the sweet message of making the most of your life while you’re alive makes it as “Definitive” a version if there ever was one! It was this video’s unique innovation as well as the girls looking so doggone ADORABLE, singing and having fun that made me totally and utterly fall in love with the song! 

...and the wonderful Split-Screen Version:

Sure, there’ve been other singles that were stronger songs and there are older tunes from them that I’m more sentimentally attached to, but to me, “Dance Surunoda” captures everything that made Morning Musume special to me, the catchy melodies, the pretty outfits, the playful demeanor and of course the charisma of those Morning Musume Girls are just a few of the reasons why I loved them sooo, soooo much back then!
Ahhhn~, watching this video now and seeing all the familiar faces, it occurs to me that this was really my favorite line-up of MM, where we had the best of all worlds, faves from Gen1 like Yuko and Nattchi, Marippe from Gen2 and Gocchin of Gen3 mixed in with the innocence of Rika, Yossie, Aibon and Nonochan creating the perfect balance of youth and experience, cuteness and confidence! Maybe I’m waxing too philosophically, but I always get into this kind of mood when I listen to the classics, really!

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