If there’s something I’ve realized in the past few days, it’s that sometimes Tsunku has the entirely wrong group of people sing the songs he conceives. There are quite a few songs in Hello! Project that just work with the type of person singing them — “Momoiro Kataomoi”, Matsuura Aya; “Tokaikko Junjou”, ℃-ute; “Renai Revolution 21″, Morning Musume, etc. But others, namely Berryz Koubou’s “Semi” which is going to be my primary example of the opposite effect, it really doesn’t work out so well, and that’s more than a little sad. I could easily see “Semi” as a big hit with the right person singing it. Berryz and their youthful, squeaky, near-identical pitches were not the right people for “Semi”. Berryz is a bastion of no talent. There’s some good eggs there, like Miyabi, Momoko, sometimes Yurina, Chinami, but for the most part, everyone sucks at putting emotion into their lines. They’ve improved on that, since their days of “Semi”, but it’s still nothing to boast about for the group. I could think of a million other good points about them than their singing.
My point is, I only really listen to “Semi” to hear Tsunku in the background. He sounds amazing. There is no doubt in my mind that Tsunku can sing good, and if he does a solo “Semi” some day with a complete band backing up him, I can die happy. But because I listen for Tsunku’s voice, the headache-inducing squeakiness of Berryz’s voices clouding over his is only a nuisance for me. It’s almost sad — I was able to enjoy the song with his vocals, but before that I never really got into it.
