GROOVE ARCHIVE
← Japanese Music
Second Morning

Japanese Music / Showa kayo & idol pop · 1999

Second Morning

Morning Musume

セカンド モーニング · モーニング娘。

Why listen

One songwriter’s material acquires different shapes through multiple arrangers and the changing voices of a group.

Listen and read

Apple MusicSpotifyYouTube MusicTIDAL
Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

Second Morning begins at night, with NIGHT OF TOKYO CITY. Its route through summer, memory and home complicates any assumption that early Morning Musume offered a single cheerful expression. Familiar singles appear alongside album songs, with several explicitly identified alternate mixes making recognition only the beginning of the experience.

The album arrived in July 1999, before LOVE Machine later that year. Its sound and personnel should therefore not be reconstructed from that subsequent hit. Released after Asuka Fukuda’s departure, it nevertheless preserves her vocal on Never Forget. A group photograph at release and the voices contained within a record can represent different moments in the same continuing history.

Shared writing, different rooms

Tsunku wrote the songs, but several arrangers shaped their settings. Yasuaki Maejima’s opener and Memory Seishun no Hikari surround Shin Kono’s Manatsu no Kousen. That sequence offers a practical comparison: listen for how similar songwriting priorities meet different accompaniments, rather than crediting every detail to one producer. The group name likewise does not require every song to distribute its vocal attention equally.

Singles returned to circulation

Vacation Mix and N.Y.Mix are part of the original album programme, as is the Album Version of Koi no Shihatsu Ressha. These labels matter because the record is more than a chronological stack of singles. Furusato followed by Daite HOLD ON ME! provides a useful central hinge. Even without knowing the earlier versions, compare how each song frames a voice addressing someone who is not immediately present.

A farewell before the finish

Never Forget appears next to last, in its Large Vocal Mix. The nearly six-minute Daddy Doodedodaddy! then prevents farewell from becoming the record’s sole final gesture. After the shorter Otome no Shinrigaku, this extended closing stretch lets a listener compare individual presence with the continuing ensemble. Learning every member’s biography is optional; hearing where the record chooses to pause and where it continues is not.

The album through its tracks

Compare the central move from Furusato into N.Y.Mix, then hear why the sequence continues beyond Never Forget.

  1. 抱いてHOLD ON ME!(N.Y.Mix)

    The sixth track retains its N.Y.Mix designation rather than silently substituting the single. Its immediate neighbour, Furusato, offers an especially useful point of comparison: notice how the change in accompaniment alters the distance between a vocal phrase and its addressee. If the chorus is already familiar, turn attention to the passages that prepare or interrupt its arrival. New listeners can instead distinguish collective vocal emphasis from shorter, more sharply divided phrases. The mix title alone does not prove that every instrument was newly recorded in New York. Keep the documented Maejima arrangement credit separate from such speculation, and consider how an established song acquires another role in this sequence.

    Reference · Up-Front Works — original EPCE-5025 programme and songwriting/arrangement credits

  2. Never Forget(Large Vocal Mix)

    Asuka Fukuda’s voice remains here after her departure from the group. That makes this eleventh track a reminder that an album can preserve a membership history different from its release-day lineup. Retain the Large Vocal Mix label without assuming that it explains every difference from the earlier single appearance. Follow a complete vocal phrase into the accompaniment that remains after it, then continue into the final track. Stopping here would give farewell the last word; the actual programme does something else. The comparison concerns the arrangement of songs and voices, not a claim to know how every member felt or exactly what the producers intended.

    Reference · CDJournal — contemporary review and Fukuda vocal on Never Forget

Listen next

Compare KOIZUMIX PRODUCTION’s Bambinater: collaboration around one featured singer offers another perspective on this group’s allocation of voices.

Bambinater ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.