Recently I have met more and more idol fans in person and learned about their likes and dislikes about their idols.  Meeting someone who was still very interested in Hello! Project brought back my waning interest in the veteran idol company, and as a result I’ve regained some of my opinions about the groups and sought out to listen to their music more than I had all summer.  While part of my fandom will die when JunJun graduates in December, I’ll try to keep my eye on Hello! Project and I’ll hold a candle for their 9th generation in support.

However, one thing that was surprising to me about these fans that I’ve met is their lack of knowledge about some of these group’s full discography.  I may follow groups differently, but when I get into a new group I try to listen to as much is available to me as possible, so I try to get their full discography and listen to songs that I think have interesting titles.  Over the years as a Hello! Project fan, I’ve listened to most of Morning Musume’s discography.  I’ve listened to almost all of their albums and picked some of my favourite songs from them.

Here’s a partial rant, but also a guideline about how to approach an idol group– they’re more than just singles and PVs, after all.

Starting with the classics, let’s take a look at Morning Musume’s music.

Morning Musume has had a remarkable 13 years of activity (so far) and are gearing up to release their 11th album in December, right before the surprise 3-person graduation of Kamei Eri, JunJun and LinLin.  One of the disappointing things about this album will be the lack of performances by the original lineup of these songs.  We won’t get to see these songs as they were originally meant to be performed, at least not more than once.  But this isn’t about their graduation, it’s about MM’s music.

When first getting into Morning Musume, I will admit i stuck with songs that were immediately available to me through PVs or concert performances on youtube, especially because i didn’t have any way to listen to their music had i downloaded it, didn’t know it was possible to buy CDs from the United States, and had no idea where I would have been able to download their music anyway.  So I watched PVs and listened through there.

When I discovered ways to download albums and singles, I got as much as possible.  And that was how i found my favourite Hello! Project song of all time, Senkou Hanabi, from Morning Musume’s 2nd album, “Second Morning.”

Unfortunately, the original version of this song is no where on Youtube, so here’s the Best Shot version, featuring Michishige Sayumi

The original song was by Abe Natsumi featuring Ichii Sayaka and Yasuda Kei as harmony.

Isn’t that song nice?  Some people probably wouldn’t have heard it if it weren’t for me posting a link on this post.  Some of Morning Musume’s best music has come from their albums, but for some reason people don’t seem to pay attention to their albums until they really get deep into their fandoms.  Some of my other favourite Morning Musume songs that are album-only are Densha no Futari, Ii koto aru Kinen no Shukan, and Mushoku Toumei na Mama de, from 4th Ikimasshoi and Rainbow 7.  These songs have had concert performances, so look for those too, but the original is definitely where it’s at.

AKB48 is another story.

Just the other day, a girl told me she had heard of AKB’s older stuff.  Being a die-hard AKB fan i started naming songs that i love like Nageki no Figure, Koi no PLAN, Dear my teacher and Yakusoku yo.  Had she heard any of these songs? No.  She’s heard Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru and 10nen Zakura though.  If you’ve read any AKB48 fan defending the quality of AKB48′s music, they’ve said that the stages are where it’s at.  I am a definite supporter of this argument, especially since some of my favourite AKB48 songs have almost no chance to get performed live at bigger concerts and won’t be included in single releases any time soon.

My favourite AKB48 song is from Team A’s 5th stage. It’s called Switch.  Non-AKB fans, have you heard it? Yeah I didn’t think so.

It’s an amazing song that you wouldn’t know about if you can’t find it in yourself to look past the front-girl centric single releases.  It features girls who some people haven’t even heard of, like Nakata Chisato, along side the biggest names in AKB like Kojima Haruna, Maeda Atsuko and Itano Tomomi.  The Stages are where the girls who aren’t so popular shine, and if you listen to just their singles you wouldn’t know anything about these songs.

I think that what I’m mainly trying to say is that if you’re going to get into an idol group, learn about the idol group as a whole, rather than just scratching the surface.  When someone mentions a somewhat obscure song, you it shouldn’t be a matter of not even knowing where the song is from, but whether or not you’ve heard the song in full.  I’m not saying that someone is a bad fan if they’re not learning everything possible, I’m just saying that if you’re going to call yourself a Morning Musume fan or an AKB fan, you should know more than just a handful of members and songs.

END RANT.