Review Summary: The album that remains Morning Musume's proudest moment.
In Japan, the year 2000 was a critical year for the pop scene. The pop rock band, Glay, started to experiment with various other sounds, Zard was reigning supreme on the album charts, T.M. Revolution split, and Mr. Children were just basking in their fame. And a shocker to some old school J-pop fans, the Japanese supergirl groups were returning. Originally, the super-girl-group idea was founded by the legendary Onyanko Club, who used perverse lyrics and an innocent image to great success. The idea died in the mid 80's, but once rehashed once Sharan Q's vocalist, Tsunku, needed a backup band. This idea snowballed into the now widely known group, Morning Musume. On their third studio album, collectively called "3rd Love Paradise", they blend some of J-pop's most classic sounds, and concoct what is arguably their most important release to date.
The album opens up with the very sweet introduction of "Ohayou", which sounds a bit like a Japanese-Disney-R&B hybrid. It's a bit hard to explain, you'd have to hear it yourself. But then, the bomb is dropped, and the Morning Musume anthem, "Love Machine", starts. The song is a bit like a mixture of classic disco, and modern bubble-pop, and makes a highly effective dancing gem. The next two tracks, "Aisha Loan de" and "Kuchizuke no Sono Ato" respectively, sound a bit like extras from a Zard album. Not like it's a bad thing, but should be pointed out.
Then again, the album is full of Japanese influences that were huge at that time, including a disco flashback ("Dance Suru no Da!"), and even including a shibuya-kei influenced spoken-track skit, "Lunchtime (Rebanira Itame)". Even though the album does borrow strongly from fads that were huge in Japan, they also do contribute a track that hardly used any popular themes at all. That track being "Koi no Dance Site", which is an interesting J-pop twist on Middle-Eastern music.
Overall, "3rd Love Paradise" is a highly entertaining listen, and shows a wide range of influences, which is something that was lacking in the first two records. Arguably their strongest album to date, and is a great starting place for anyone looking to start off their Morning Musume journey, or really any J-pop journey. A classic record, hands down.
