Search - Morning Musume :: Rainbow V.7

Spirited musical fun on Morning Musume's best CD in years

Brian Camp | Bronx, NY | 04/05/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Rainbow 7" is the 7th CD album released by Morning Musume, the all-girl J-pop sensation now nearing their tenth year of performing. This one's a bit different from their previous albums and a big improvement over albums 5 and 6. The current group (now up to 7th Gen) is younger, more aggressively girlish, and more raucous than previous groupings. The songs exploit this with rousing dance arrangements, often with a Latin flavor involving heavy percussion and brass sections, and more tracks where the girls all sing together for much of the song. The songs are all fun and energetic and boast a higher and more diverse degree of musical imagination than we've heard from producer Tsunku in quite some time.



The first track includes the insistent English chorus, "How do you LIKE this Japan?" and opens with ever-cheery 5th Gen performer Risa shouting out, "Yo, Yo, mike check, mike check!" (Listen for Hitomi's delightful trilling effect in this one.) "Indigo Blue Love" (Track 5) is a softer piece that highlights Risa, Eri and Reina. Track 6, "Rainbow Pink," puts together Sayumi and the newest member, Koharu, in a song that includes dialogue and sounds like a theme for a shoujo anime series. Tracks 8, "Mushoku Toumei na Mama de," and 9, "Purple Wind," are the softest pieces on the CD and are real nice. One of the best tracks is #10, "Sayonara, See You Again, Adios, Bye Bye, Chaccha!," which has a real Bollywood feel to it that makes you want to get up and do an Indian wedding dance. The three hits on the album are "The Manpower" and new versions of previous hits (from the sixth album), "Chokkan 2" (a much-too-loud rendition this time) and "Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari" (The Story of Noisy Girls), which now devotes a section to 7th Gen member Koharu Kusumi, who wasn't around for the original recording.



The limited edition comes with a photo booklet showing individual and group shots of the girls in beautiful Victorian-era black-and-white costumes inspired by Cecil Beaton's designs for the "Ascot Gavotte" number in "My Fair Lady." The photos are great and the girls all look stunning, even if the costumes have absolutely nothing to do with any of the music.

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