I personally have been waiting a while for Morning Musume to throw something out there that really stuck. Things have been rocky for a while, but with their newest single, “Wakuteka Take a Chance” I'm really starting to feel like Morning Musume has 'come back'. It hit #3 On oricon with 54,047 Sales on it's first day, currently 26 but having peaked at number 1 since then.
Onwards to the review!
I'm not a huge fan of auto-tune. I'm a singer myself and feel like this is a lazy way to make someone sound better than they are. Auto-tune is used everywhere nowadays, but atleast Morning Musume doesn't try to hide the fact that a certain (cute!) member is auto-tuned frequently. I don't mind it so much if it goes with an electronic feel of the tune and especially don't mind so much if there's no coyness about using auto-tune. “Wakuteka Take a Chance” is heavily auto-tuned even when the members obviously have a great voice – which evens out the roughness and cringe of hearing it for me. In fact I really liked it in this song and thought it worked well with the high pop visual of the video.
The music video itself has been featured on Morning Musume's youtube page along with a rehearsal version. There is also a version where the dance teachers perform the song's choreography because the producer wanted to really get across the 'feel' for the song. Considering two members were injured at the time I suppose it makes sense, but it must play on the minds of the current members!
I really like the music video for this song. There's something very entertaining about the overall lightning and fast cuts, however I feel we could have used more dance bits. There are some really great zoom shots of each of the girls that really shows off their personalities and this is great to finally see! I'm hoping they come out with a Dance-shot only version!
On to the costumes! Okay, I have to say I didn't like these costumes very much. I thought they clashed with the video and reminded me too much of Halloween for an October release. I feel like the song itself has some adult tones, but they tried to soften the video with the costumes being very cute and modest which is very Morning Musume! The costumes weren't bad, I just didn't like them as much as I normally like their costumes. Maybe I'm a bit odd here! :P
Overall: 8/10 Music: 8/10 Costume: 6/10 Dance: 7/10 Music Video: 9/10
I'm not a huge fan of auto-tune. I'm a singer myself and feel like this is a lazy way to make someone sound better than they are. Auto-tune is used everywhere nowadays, but atleast Morning Musume doesn't try to hide the fact that a certain (cute!) member is auto-tuned frequently. I don't mind it so much if it goes with an electronic feel of the tune and especially don't mind so much if there's no coyness about using auto-tune. “Wakuteka Take a Chance” is heavily auto-tuned even when the members obviously have a great voice – which evens out the roughness and cringe of hearing it for me. In fact I really liked it in this song and thought it worked well with the high pop visual of the video.
The music video itself has been featured on Morning Musume's youtube page along with a rehearsal version. There is also a version where the dance teachers perform the song's choreography because the producer wanted to really get across the 'feel' for the song. Considering two members were injured at the time I suppose it makes sense, but it must play on the minds of the current members!
I really like the music video for this song. There's something very entertaining about the overall lightning and fast cuts, however I feel we could have used more dance bits. There are some really great zoom shots of each of the girls that really shows off their personalities and this is great to finally see! I'm hoping they come out with a Dance-shot only version!
On to the costumes! Okay, I have to say I didn't like these costumes very much. I thought they clashed with the video and reminded me too much of Halloween for an October release. I feel like the song itself has some adult tones, but they tried to soften the video with the costumes being very cute and modest which is very Morning Musume! The costumes weren't bad, I just didn't like them as much as I normally like their costumes. Maybe I'm a bit odd here! :P
Overall: 8/10 Music: 8/10 Costume: 6/10 Dance: 7/10 Music Video: 9/10