H!P All Stars - 憧れのStress-free

Akogare no Stress-free
Lyrics and Composition: Tsunku
Arrangement: Hirata Shoichiro
Music Video: Nomura Toru

Normally I do not engage in idol talk, but I always make exceptions when I’m moved. So this video was great because it showed the members of H!P in a way that shows the popularity of the members and a slice of personality for them. The whole video is a collection of Solo Shots (one red background, one blue background) that were put together in a manic fashion. This girls on screen correspond to the girls singing in the song. Since its the HP all stars, the singing lines are generally split up by group, so one group sings this line, another sings this line, you can see who is singing by what solo shots are on the screen. In general, the groups do not mix when they sing, but not all members sing at once. So 5 girls from MM may sing at one time, but its not a mix of 3 MM and 2 Angerme girls on screen at once. Its pretty cool. I think Dawa and Fuku-hime are the only ones to get a solo line, and they are the leader and sub-leader of hello project respectively. If you focus on the center of the screen, you can see who the “most popular” girls are in each group. The  closer to the middle of the screen, the more popular, except probably Maa-chan who is not represented as such. So fan favorites like Ayacho, Kumikkyo, Hama-chan, kiki-chan, etc got big pictures and were near the center. This gives you a general ranking of the popularity of the girls. If she is off in the corner, she is probably an acquired taste. But if you study those solo shots, my oshis were SHINING! I was Love love LOVING Akane’s solo shots, they were almost as charming as Maa-chan’s but not quite… I am excite!

Biggest thing in this video is how this is the first single that Beyonds participated in. So It feels good looking at these girls who have been patiently waiting to debut. They look so nice here, but I am waiting until they get more mature as a group to really cheer for them, but I’m patiently waiting for them to blossom.

General Thoughts
Surf Rock + Baroque = WTF. Just how in the world did Tsunku mix the two genres? Why would he even try… this song is another really good example of songs you will only hear in H!P. So surf rock is a style of rock that emerged with the electric guitar. This is probably one of the most popular surf rock songs. The sound of the guitars and the space between the notes… yes, this IS my aural image of the surf rock sound… and baroque is a period of “classical music” that is highly distinct…

Song Structure
Okay disclaimer time. I am no music major or performer, so my musical vocabulary to talk about some of the things Tsunku does is limited. He does not often write typical songs, so I do not have the correct vocabulary for the variety of parts he has in this song. I have just chosen to name the parts of the song as follows and whenever I want to mention a part of a song, just know that is what I’m talking about.

Lead In - 1 bar
Intro - 8 bars
1st Verse -  8 bars
Chorus -stress 8 bars
2nd Verse - 8 bars
Part A (Peace) - 8 bars
Part B (Naritai) - 6 bars
Baroque Bridge - 10 bars
3rd Verse - 8 bars
True Chorus (Fuku-Hime) - 2 bars
True Bridge - 20 bars
1st Verse -  8 bars
Chorus -stress 8 bars
2nd Verse - 8 bars
Part A (Peace) - 8 bars
Part B (Noritai) - 6 bars
Baroque Bridge - 10 bars
3rd Verse - 8 bars
True Chorus (Dawa) - 2 bars
Outro 10 bars

Lyrics
Its hard for me to tell what this song is about without me translating it. I do not want to translate it at the moment, so I think that I will just be in the dark about this song until I translate it. However, it seems to be a song about the stress in young women’s lives. They stress other bring to them, and the stress that they put on themselves. I think the protagonist wishes that they lived in a stress free time like when they were a child, but alas, no such luck.

Arrangement
So the sounds in this songs seem to be keyboard, drums, guitars, bass. A very stripped down small combo sound. I generally favor this sound over the very large, tons of sonic layers, sound. Its probably a symptom of my Jazz preferences. I think the most understated part of this song may be the bassline. Tsunku is known to be a fan of “funky” basslines, and in this song he really gives the song a lot of bounce with his basslines in the verses. In the intro, the bassline is very typical of surf rock, but after the intro the bassline gets very groovy baby. It is, of course, very plain in the Baroque Bridge, because its baroque-like. But outside of the baroque bridge the bassline is really worth noticing.

The True bridge is quite “ProTool-y” in that its like a EDM breakdown-y type thing. No emulations of live instrumentation like the other parts of the song. It certainly is a different experience.

I think I have clearly stated that I am a very very helpless circle of fifths addict and would do anything to “get my fix.” Tsunku serves up a really nice version of it first 4 bars of the baroque bridge. Here is an example of legit baroque music played on piano. Of course the voice is one melody (and harmony) and the keyboards play another melody and the bass is the slope that serves as the base for us to descend the beautiful circle of fifths slide.

One of the notable things in this song is the amount of space in the song. Its a fairly open song with so much space in between the notes and the phrasings of the instrumentation. Its not this huge cacophony of sound. Its likely because so few elements were used to make the song and the genre of the song lent itself to leaving spaces and openess between the instruments. Its so great, its like a grilled cheese sandwich, the lack of things competing for your taste buds allows you to really taste what the cheese, bread, and butter bring to the eating experience… In a way that they may be lost or not as noticeable in eating a fully dressed burger. Anyways, I just think that the keyboards play the most chilled part in the background part of the song. Ever so often, just popping in on 1 to give us some color to the song. The rhythm guitar is just chugging along, lol. The lead guitar is like a drizzle of dressing that just shows up every so often and just gives us a sweet simple guitar lick to chew on, then disappears. Then that main guitar riff that starts the song off in the lead in is playfully withheld from us listeners.

The vocal part in general is two part harmony. But in times is gets more complex (Part A Peace) and more simple (True Chorus). In my opinion, its standard H!P fare (which I like a lot), but I think that its hard to notice how much flavor H!P give to songs without listening to instruments. Maa-chan already told the people they need to listen to more instrumentals… On the other hand, the harmonizing parts of the vocals are not shabby. The youtuber “Hello Factory” has a channel full of extractions of the isolated vocal and chorus versions of H!P songs. Please like and subscribe to them if you like what they are doing. You can find their channel here. Just listen to the harmonies in this song, aren’t they just splendid? Listen to the Vocal Version and the Chorus Version。Its actually more nuanced and has more parts than I realized on first listen. The harmonization is so beautiful… man H!P is certainly for music wota.
All in all. I think its songs like this that make it worthwhile to be a Tsunku wota. All of his stuff is good, but from time to time he will give you something you can only hear from Tsunku. This is one of those songs.