...my true love gave to me MORNING MUSUME,
a celebration,
something a bit naughty,
a rise to fame,
10 years of bliss,
an anniversary trio,
a group of amazing vocalists,
a hit single,
a stunning voice,
the sweetest song,
a deliciously creepy new artist,
and a WINTER PARTY!

Firstly: MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone! I hope everyone has a great day filled with lots of joy and memories. What better way to celebrate this Xmas than with my personal favourite group, Morning Musume! Though they've only released 2 singles this year, I think many were blown away by the enigmatic Resonant Blue, a song which surprised and brought plenty of joy to lots of people this year!

When I first heard this song it was via a pretty ordinary radio rip and I was truly transfixed. It was something totally different to what MM had done before and I was in love with Resonant Blue from the first second. Around the web, there was definitely a sense of excitement about this release, the vast majority of people LOVED it and everyone was trying to find out who sang what lines (because everyone sounded so different and great) and then eventually we learnt it was all Ai and Reina lol, but whatever. From the 4 PVs to the kick ass covers, for me, this was one of the greatest releases MM had produced in years.

The new, more mainstream, image was very welcomed by a lot of the fans and one we had gradually seen MM nudging towards in recent songs. I can only hope that Pepper Keibu (which I did really like) was a slight deviation from this new direction (due to the remake album) and that MM will return to this style with their next single. I really think it is what MM needs to maintain the current fans and win new ones, we need MM to stick around for many more years! ^_^

I hope you've enjoyed reading these 12 Days of Christmas segments. I know a few people have discovered new artists through it and I hope many of you enjoyed at least reading my own thoughts on the songs. Now, I purposely only decided to use 1 H!P track for the 12 Days since otherwise there would be far too little variety lol. As a result I'll list my 10 fav H!P singles of the year:

10

Fujimoto Miki

Okitegami

09
Athena & Robikerottsu

Seishun Love Lunch

08
Berryz Koubou

Dschinghis Khan

07
Buono!

Lotta Love Lotta Love

06
MilkyWay

Anataboshi

05
C-ute

Namida no Iro

04
High-King

C\C (Cinderella\Complex)

03
Buono!

Renai Rider

02
C-ute

Edo no Temari Uta II

01
Morning Musume

Resonant Blue

All in all, I'd say it's been a pretty good year for H!P in regards to actual songs. I've quite liked a number of the releases and hopefully 2009 is even better! Once again, have a great day!

MERRY CHRISTMAS
♥ Stardust!

NEWS: Berryz Koubou had the privilege of performing at the 41st Nippon Yuusen Taishou Ongaku Shoujushou Award show last night and were also nominated for the Wired music prize.

The performance was really great with some cute new costumes. There seemed to be some audio problems: Risako's mic was booming while some of the others were hardly audible, but that may have been intentional XD

Fujimoto Miki also performed at the awards which was a nice, little surprise. She sang a duet with Takao Horiuchi.

Unfortunately I don't think Berryz won the award they were nominated in - at least I haven't heard anything about it and if they had, I'm sure I would have. The nice thing is that everyone gets an award. C-ute was nominated for the best new artist last year at these awards and despite not winning they still got little medals. Yay for Berryz.

C-ute will appear later this month at the 50th Japan Record Awards where they won the Best New Artist award last year. This year they are nominated for the Excellence Award for their hit Edo no Temari Uta II.

NEWS: Earlier this evening, C-ute and Fujimoto Miki both performed at the Lyricist Award Show, a ceremony held in honour of the great lyricists of Japanese Music - Tsunku has been a past winner at the awards show.

C-ute performed twice, opening the show with ZARD's MAKENAIDE before later performing their hit single Edo no Temari Uta II which was nominated for an award, Yoshioka Osamu being the writer of the song. You can check out both performances below:

Fujimoto Miki paired up with Horiuchi Takao (who she had previously worked with on Oki tegami) to sing Itsu demo yume wo. I can't find any vid of the performance yet though. But I do have pics ^_^

Fujimoto Miki is featured in the latest edition of J-BLUES, which gives us a nice look at one of the many events held for her latest single Okitegami. These events were held weekly, helping the single chart for over 20 weeks (which must be close to a record for H!P).

lol at Miki's pink slippers :p I guess if she has to stand throughout the whole handshake portion of the event, she should at least be comfortable ;)

I really loved Okitegami, but it was released SOOO long ago. I'd like a new single soon, though I don't know how realistic that is. Miki's working hard on GREASE at the moment and the SingleV for Okitegami is only just being released now (o.O), so it might still be quite a wait away. Fingers crossed it's not too far away.

NEWS: Shocking news this afternoon as the official Hello!Project website announced the mass graduation of every Elder Club member on the 31st of March, 2009.

Graduating Members


Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari


Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Tsuji Nozomi, Konno Asami, Ogawa Makoto


Fujimoto Miki, Satoda Mai, Inaba Atsuko, Maeda Yuki


Melon Kinenbi
Saito Hitomi, Murata Megumi, Ohtani Masae, Shibata Ayumi


Miyoshi Erika, Matsuura Aya, Okada Yui


Ongaku Gatas' Eggs
Korenaga Miki, Noto Arisa, Sengoku Minami, Sawada Yuri

While the girls are graduating from Hello!Project, they will apparently still remain part of UFA and continue as artists without being idols. Whether this refers to all members is unclear at this point. The Eggs will likely remain within the Hello! Pro Eggs, other than Korenaga who graduated as an Egg since joining Ongaku Gatas.

I gotta say... This is just horrible news. To me many of these artists are who I think of when I think of H!P. How can you have H!P without Yuko or Nacchi? Mari or Kei? Crazy Johnson? The incredible 4th gen? All the soloists? Ahh, it's gonna take a bit to get my head around this. Just the other day I was ranking my fav members in H!P with a friend and they were surprised I had so many of these Elder Club members so high. I really do respect and adore these girls. They will be missed.

ORICON ROUNDUP: Amuro Namie stayed at the top of the charts this week for her third consecutive week, surpassing the million dollar milestone for the 5th time in her career. Her last million dollar seller was back in 1998 with 181920 and BEST FICTION has definitely brought her back to the top. It's been a long haul but she got back there. Congratulations Namie-sama!

Tokunaga Hideaki's new set of BEST albums sold well, SINGLES BEST charting at no.2 with 87K while SINGLES B-side BEST was just outside the top 10 at no.11. Continuing the BEST theme: EXILE ENTERTAINMENT BEST is at no.4, Saitou Kazuyoshi's "Uta Utai 15" SINGLES BEST 1993~2007 is at no.6 and THE BEST OF DETECTIVE CONAN 3 is at no.9. *phew* lots of BESTs.

Recent regulars GReeeeN, Kusou and Koi no Uta stuck around in the top 10 while Kimaguren's ZUSHI falls out.

On the Singles Chart SMAP takes the top spot (surprise, surprise) with 90K sales. Kono Toki, Kitto Yume ja Nai is their 10th consecutive no.1 seller. Last week's no.1 Southern All Stars continues strong at no.2 with 77K while Gake no Ue no Ponyo sticks at 3rd. Quiz Hexagon's Aladdin is at no.5, Mr Children at no.6 and ARASHI is at no.9 in their 9th week on the chart.
New releases from FLOW, Spontania feat. JUJU, Tanimura Nana and GARNET CROW filled out the rest of the top 10 with alan's Sora no Uta at no.34. Poor alan continues to sell dismally despite a ton of money being thrown her way. Oh well.

Fujimoto Miki's Okitegami returns to the top 100 in her 17th week selling 1,018 cds. Long live sales events! C-ute's Edo no Temari Uta II ranks at no.90 in its 3rd week selling 5 less copies than Miki-sama, bringing their total sales past the 35K mark, while THE Possible's Ijiwaru Crazy Love falls out of the top 100 with only 554 copies sold.

CHARTS:

Singles:

01. Kono Toki, Kitto Yume ja Nai SMAP 90,616
02. I AM YOUR SINGER Southern All Stars 77,165
03. Gake no Ue no Ponyo Fuijioka Fujimaki & Oohashi Nozomi 41,009
04. WORLD END FLOW 32,190
05. Hi wa, Mata Noboru Aladdin 25,893
06. GIFT Mr.Children 25,738
07. Kimi no Subete ni Spontania feat. JUJU 22,722
08. If I'm not the one / SEXY SENORITA Tanimura Nana 17,276
09. One Love ARASHI 17,016
10. Yume no Hitotsu GARNET CROW 10,817

34. Sora no Uta alan 2,774

89. Okitegami Fujimoto Miki 1,018
90. Edo no Temari Uta II C-ute 1,013
??. Ijiwaru Crazy love THE Possible 554

Albums:

01. BEST FICTION Amuro Namie 153,107
02. SINGLE BEST Tokunaga Hideaki 87,009
03. HB Kusuo 25,616
04. EXILE ENTERTAINMENT BEST EXILE 25,074
05. ZERO CRAZY KEN BAND 19,738

06. "Uta Utai 15" SINGLES BEST 1993~2007 Saitou Kazuyoshi 19,559
07. Koi no Uta (Various Artists) 17,245
08. A, Domo. Ohisashiburi Desu. GReeeeN 16,468
09. THE BEST OF DETECTIVE CONAN 3 (Various Artists) 14,900

11. SINGLE B-side BEST Tokunaga Hideaki 12,664
12. ZUSHI Kimaguren 12,068