モーニング娘。’16『セクシーキャットの演説』

モーニング娘。’16『セクシーキャットの演説』
作詞：つんく　作曲：つんく　編曲：大久保薫
This song was composed by Tsunku and arranged by Okubu Kaoru.
This song was released on November 23, 2016 and was Morning Musume’s 62nd single.

I really really love this song. It one of my favorite songs that Morning Musume put out between album 14 and 15. Apparently not everyone shares my views,lol. No matter, because this sort of song is why I’m in the fanbase. Its a Jazzy EDM type number. I’m pretty sure the jazz this is based off of is Big Band Swing, which is largely brass based jazz. Its old, so its closely connected to the New Orleans marching band type of jazz, which I associate with tuba’s for bass. Instead of the string bass that was favored as jazz evolved. I also associate it with clarinets. Swing is old stuff, like 1930 and 1940’s. I’m not sure why, but Japanese people LOVE Swing jazz, I hear it so much in their pop culture. I hear newer and older forms of jazz much less often. Like the aforementioned New Orleans jazz, I also hear very little be-bop and cool jazz. But Fusion Jazz was very well represented in the end of the Showa era, I must add. It was in anime, video games, idol music, tv. Japan has treated fusion jazz well 🙂
Anyways swing jazz is about rhythm… no wonder Tsunku uses it.

Now this song is NOT Jazz, its just Jazz-like, just like most idol music. So many parts of the song are just standard pop. But they certainly were going for a Benny Goodman Sing sing sing type feel. I guess even though Tsunku is a Musician, he feels actually writing songs outside of jpop / kayokyoku just is not profitable in Japan. But I think this song is at its most amazing when it is flirting with the jazziness, like at the bridge and the chorus right after the bridge. That walking bassline and twinkling of the keys in that post bridge pre chorus is worth the price of admission in my opinion! The harmonies in the vocals are always very nice in Hello Project songs, but they are exceptional in this song. If you listen to the harmonizing vocal parts, they are so jazzy. Take Duu’s part around 3:00, Duu sings an a (song is in E- minor), then slides up to the b- and the harmonizing part sings the g- the whole time with the bass on a b g- a  little movement. So simple, but that sort of juicy chord is why I’m here 🙂

It sounds like the saxaphone in this song is one of the bigger saxes like a tenor sax. As this internet citizen commented the sax “riff” from the beginning is the same one from Juice-Juice’s song. Its in a different key of course, but they are right… and I don’t care because I liked it in Juice=Juice’s song and I like it in Morning Musume’s song. Its like public domain samples in music in general, I don’t care. Just make something fun with it. Its essentially a jazz trio-esque sound, despite being inspired by the big band sound.Its a synth (including the synth brass thats plastered all over this track), sax, drums, and bass. The drums switch between 808-esque drum samples and big band timpani-esque samples. There are these little synth strings in little parts of the song that add more old timey feel to the track.

Like I said one of my favorite songs in recent Morning Musume history. I also really love the visuals for the music video, but thats neither here nor there.