It’s a common debate that people argue about rationally or very…irrationally. Who is the best idol group? Which group really does have all the qualities needed to be the best out there? Many argue it’s Morning Musume. Othes insist that within its own label, it is being trumped by groups like C-ute or Berryz Koubou. Outside you have Perfume, AKB48, Idolling!!, or even The Possible. People complaining back and forth over which group is the best, constantly bickering and even snarking each others’ comments. It’s a free world, you have every right to do that. My only issue? What’s the point? Really? I’m being perfect serious in asking why do we need to constantly compare these groups to another and love them each as individual groups? Yes, I have a preference to Morning Musume, but I’m not going to sit there and look at every other group and constantly compare them to each other. It’s pointless to be honest. Each group is its own entity an while they share a great deal of similarities, shouldn’t it just be about enjoying the music? It took me awhile to listen to AKB48. Why? Too many freaking girls. Sixteen Musume were enough to confuse me for a bit, but 30+ in one group? Even split into groups, it annoyed me. But their music? It’s good. Not all of it is good, but that’s only because a few of their songs just don’t fit my particular taste. The same way goes at times for Morning Musume. So here I am going to write a lovely entry talking about each of the groups, their strengths, their weaknesses, and in the end, why comparing them is preventing us from truly enjoying their music as a whole.

SPEED: Saying that they are not an idol group would be a lie. While the girls are each individually talented, they debuted a full year before Morning Musume and they pretty much rocked the world. They still hold the title for best-selling Japanese female group to this day. The pros? They have a good deal of great music. While nowadays the taste of us fans and the industry has changed significantly, SPEED embodied the idea of what an idol group was. A group of young (when they were formed, the average age for group was 13) pretty girls who sang and danced, and were a pretty big staple in the industry. They were each talented and had a bit of a hip hop feel to their music, but concentrated on the happy pop that we all know we love. The cons? Not everyone likes their music and those people with a more mature taste in style definitely wouldn’t find a particular liking to them. While the vocals of the two lead girls are good, the other two are often shafted for solo lines. They also weren’t the best sounding live. Another con, is that they broke up in 2000 to go their separate ways, which sorta sucks. Their 10 year anniversary has passed as well, so it doesn’t look like SPEED is going to be reforming anytime soon. Dang it. I’d go into more detail but I’m sure a lot of people who run blogs nowadays have very little experience with SPEED. Shame on you! :O

Morning Musume: The flagship group of Hello!Project. While their faces change over the years, the group has been around for ten and still active. For an idol group, frankly, I’m pretty impressed. Currently nine members (at one point sixteen!), Morning Musume started off s contest rejects and made a name for themselves. Over the years they have transformed and morphed into the Morning Musume we know (and most still love!) today. The pros? Morning Musume, old songs and new, boast a variety of style. Touching on everything from hip hop to rock to swing and even techno, it’s hard to find a group that has touched on so many genres and still remained successful. While their last single did very poorly in physical sales (Why? I have no freaking clue.), the group is still active and do at least three concerts a year. Each girl also has their own singing style and it is very easy to pick out who is who. And with the group of 7+ girls, that’s pretty impressive in my eyes. Morning Musume is a group where when a new single is announced, you know and don’t know certain things. You don’t know what sort of song it will be until they tell you (again with the variety). You do know that certain members of the group will get a majority of the solo lines. Which brings me to, the cons. While it is a big group, there is little variety in who sings solo lines. Takahashi Ai by default gets a good deal of lines, and with good reason, the girl has a great voice. Tanaka Reina is another one, though I get iffy on her voice during certain songs. Kusumi Koharu, my favorite member and probably the most hated, will get a good deal, which I think is extremely unfair. I love the girl to pieces, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see others get more attention. Particularly Kamei Eri. It’s pretty much the same song and dance when a new single comes out and we get our first listen of the concert/radio rip. People getting really ticked that certain people got the most lines and others whom they love more are once again neglected. I believe that is a downfall with most H!P groups in general. A lot of the time people who are subpar singers will share the main spotlight with those who are far more deserving of solo lines. But I’ll get into that later.

Another downfall? The wotas. The only thing stopping me from making a trip to Japan to see a H!P concert is the amount of creepy wotas that I see. And I think that in particular scares off a lot of girls from going to see the concerts themselves as well. I’ve heard a great deal of horror stories about wotas of different fandoms, and it’s rather creepy. Oh, and let’s not forget the poor promotion! At least, the outdated promotion style. At the peak of their popularity, Morning Musume were featured in various commercials and game shows, now? They appear on the music shows, do lots of concert tours and have Haromoni@. What would help? Getting them in dramas, having them do more television spots, and slow down the constant touring since it already took its toll on Goto Maki. Does this work? Yes. Johnny’s Entertainment is a clear example of how this works. I am not a fan of Johnny’s, not music wise, I think they are given way too much credit, but as actors? Yes, I think they are great and entertaining. I still wished they had grabbed the girls from Momusu and stuck them as students in the new Gokusen. Because that would have been freaking awesome, you and I both know it. But my thoughts in general of Morning Musume as a group? Because they are ever changing and transforming, I can see them lasting a lot longer. Now if Tsunku stopped writing all their music and let someone else give it a shot, someone who say…writes less of the old school pop sound and goes for something a little fresher? That’d be awesome.

AKB48: I had never heard of this group until their infamous “Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru” single came out with a video showing the solicitation of young girls with older men. What I do know about the group is that they perform a lot at the Akihabara for their fans, daily I believe. They also have three teams of 16 and as a whole make up 48 members. Their name is shortened for “Akihabara 48″, obviously. There was at one point 53 members (holy sh*t!). I’m still rather new to them as a group, but I’ve downloaded various albums to give them a lot. I am mostly satisfied with their music, but yes, there are cons to this group. The pros? They have some really catchy songs, which only two made it as actual singles. Other songs like “Blue Rose” or “Bird” are stage songs and catchy, though somewhat similar to each other in style. The songs “Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru” and “BINGO!” are also great songs. Others? Pretty unforgettable. At least in my opinion. There is also a great deal of talent among these girls and they were bred on the stage, so you know their voices on the albums haven’t been as edited as other idol groups have been. The fact that they are a commercial group and still do the daily performances impresses me. They also use their videos to touch on topics that probably ring true to the youth of Japan, and it’s probably that which makes them have such a variety in their fan base, instead of there being overpowering wotas.

The cons? There are too freaking many of them. I can deal with 16 girls, but once you get past 20, I walk away. Yes, they are split into three teams of 16, but do I make the effort to learn who each of the girls are? No. Why? Why are you asking me why? It’s a personal problem I have with the group, and I’m sure that lots of girls in the teams get shafted on actual singles but get to own the stage. Which would you want? The stage of a small theater? Or your face featured in the video individually, not just another face in the crowd. Another con? Their song variety. While they have some really great songs, most I find are generally boring and cliche. Nothing that catches my actual interest. I’ve heard a lot of their songs by now, so I feel safe saying that.

Berryz Koubou: Ah, one of the “rivals” to Morning Musume. within their own label. Berryz started off as Hello!Project Kids, and were mostly used as back-up dancers until they officially formed back in 2004 and they were supposed to trade members with the girls who now form, °C-ute. Consisting of one point eight girls, now they are seven and have remained the same line up since their formation. Four girls usually take the lead: Momoko, Miyabi, Risako, and Yurina. The other three are tossed one solo line per song (normally) and are usually left with the chorus. The pros? They have a few good songs that I find pretty spiffy. Their latest, “Dschinghis Khan” is sticky too. They also have some pretty talented kids who have been trained from a very young age to do this for a living, they are experienced and familiar with each other and what is expected of them. That is a great strength.

The cons? Oh dear. Do you really want me to go over this? Okay, fine. First. Having four our of the SEVEN girls take the leads all the time. Particularly when a majority of that half are not good singers. Period. I don’t care how cute you are, I’m a Koharu fan, but even I can admit that she is a pretty lousy singer. Two of the girls constantly forgotten about put aside have some of the best voices, and I guess they aren’t ‘pretty’ enough. Notice how Chinami, Saki, and Maasa don’t have photobooks? Notice how the other four do? Given consistently the short end of the stick, that is a major problem I have with Berryz. You only have seven girls and you aren’t adding anymore, why don’t you do the world a favor and use all of them to their full potential? Oh, another point. While a lot of their songs are good, there are quite a few that are boring and a snooze fest. And I’m not going to go into their mini album where they did cover songs, particularly Risako’s cover of Ayaya’s “Yeah! Meccha Holiday“. >I I can see them getting more popular, but I can’t see myself fully liking them as a whole because of the way things are now. =/ I don’t compare them to Morning Musume, just FYI, but I look at them as an individual group. Just FYI.

°C-ute: Another rival group for Morning Musume, at least dubbed by fans. They are the Berryz “rejects” (as stated so beautifully by Erika) and another group of seven. I would think if you’re going to compare any group against each other, °C-ute vs. Berryz would be the most obvious. But I’m not here to compare them, I’m here to point out why I do and don’t like them. Now let’s start on the pros. C-ute is a group that prior to their commercial debut and only once after have managed to make me pleased with their music. No one can deny the power of “Tokaikko Junjou“. Early songs like “Massara Blue Jeans” and “Ooki na Ai de Motenashite” were fabulous as well! They are a good band and they blend well together when it comes to vocals. They are hard working, performed on stage when the youngest members looked as though they should be playing on a jungle gym or having cookies & milk instead. They’ve grown and really made a name for themselves, gaining popularity left and right. With good reason. So now, what do I have to be negative about?

The cons. First and foremost, ever since their commercial debut, most of the songs have been more like Suzuki Airi feat. °C-ute, rather than a somewhat normal distribution of lyrics. I mean, she isn’t even sharing the majority with anyone else in songs like “Sakura Chirai” or “Meguru Koi no Kisetsu“. For me, that’s a major problem when out of seven girls, one is commanding a majority of the vocals. Don’t get me wrong, Airi has a great voice, but she isn’t the only great voice. What do I blame? Oh, definitely physical appeal. Like most groups, girls who aren’t extremely pretty are often put in the back as props and sing pieces of the song, usually the chorus. It’s hard to sell a group of cute girls when the ones with the great voices can’t appeal to the audience physically. I’m not saying that girls like Erika, Chisato or Kanna aren’t cute, in fact, I find them adorable, however do they fit the typical standard of beauty in Japan? No. They don’t. So that’s why of course they don’t get lovely photobooks or lead lines, even though pretty much everyone knows that Chisato could blow the rest of the group out of the water. Oh, and quite a few of their songs sound rather…cliche. Just typical pop songs, nothing to really make them stand out among the rest. You would think they would try a little harder considering that they need to keep up with the Johnny’s boys and the other unstoppable chart toppers. *shrugs*

Perfume: A trio of electro-pop/techno, Perfume actually started up in 2001 when the girls were only 11 to 12 years old. However it wasn’t until 2005 when they officially debuted to the commercial market with their infectious synth pop. I actually hadn’t heard about them until 2006 when their Complete Best album came out. I had never heard of the group before so I was confused as to why there was a Complete Best. Back then I was foolish enough to believe I knew everything about Japanese pop music, which I am aware now that I do not. I listened to the album and I liked it. What’s not to love about synth/techno? It’s fun, it’s catchy and very easily gets stuck in your head. So I was made a fan of Perfume. So, the pros? Unique style. Generally. There isn’t another group out there that sounds quite like Perfume, and it’s obvious that the guy in charge sees that the style is working for them. It’s also what is helping them climb up the charts with each single. Perfume is Perfume, not a brand name knock-off.

So what are the cons? Their music. Actually. It’s easy to get sick of their music because after while, it all starts to sound the same. While I do like the style, I’m one for a variety of style, so hearing the same general beat to a song over and over again does not help me at all in liking a group. If you can’t change, if you can’t evolve, move out of the way. I’m sure that Perfume’s style will take a turn in direction when the public starts to get tired, but until then they are having chart success. Good for them.

Why should we compare?  No, really why.  Each group has its own style, their own strength, their weaknesses.  Constantly comparing the groups to each other only leads to unnecessary conflict, stupid stupid conflict.  Do you really think that all this arguing is going to actually do anything?  And look at what you might be missing out on if they don’t give each group a fair chance.  We tend to be very closed minded because we feel there needs to be a certain loyalty to the fandoms we love.  It’s perfectly normal to feel that way, but when that ‘loyalty’ starts to turn into nothing but lame and pointless arguing, then it’s time to start sorting out your priorities.  I am a Utada Hikaru fan.  I love the girl to pieces.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that there are people who don’t like her, big deal, I don’t care.  But I’m not going to sit and watch for any other artist to put out new music so I can rant and rave about how much Hikki is better than the rest of them.  That’s lame and immature.  No, I’m not a fan of Koda Kumi, I had been at one point, but I don’t listen to her music, I don’t download her songs, and I don’t deal with her.  I was a fan at one point, but I realized I really didn’t like her music so much anymore and her old songs were worn out.  So I just stepped away.  It’s not hard and you get a lot more respect from people that matter that way.   I have little respect for people who sit and tear other artists apart because they have some loyalty to a particular singer/group.  Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?

And there we go.  I’m sure a lot of people don’t agree with the things I’ve said here, and I’m okay with that. It’s called having an opinion.  But if you choose to disagree and comment, do so in a mature manner, because if you don’t, you’re just proving my point.