C-ute talks about their newest album, “6 Chou Wonderful!” - Part 1
Web De☆View recently sat down with Hello! Project group C-ute to talk about their latest album, “6 Chou Wonderful!”. For part 1, members Yajima Maimi and Suzuki Airi talked about their own personal growth, and shared stories about recording for the album.
Check out the interview below!
Q.) What kind of things are in this album?
Yajima Maimi: Our last album, “Shocking 5″, had a lot of songs that were mellow, but this time there’s a wide variety of melodies. Every time you (hear one of the) songs, you sense that, “Ah, it’s got a lot of energy” or “This one is cute.” Each one of the songs has a completely different feel to it.
Suzuki Airi: C-ute’s latest songs have a lot of “life-sized” lyrics. Like “Kiss Me Aishiteru”. It’s a song (about someone who’s) kinda pushed themselves to the limit, but it really feels like something that’s illustrated a wholly pure love. In this album, there are a lot of songs that have a sense of a really pure world, like “Chou Wonderful!”, “Circle”, and “3ban Ho-mu 3ryoume”. I hope people who listen (to our songs) can empathize and take in the emotions we’re singing about. The melodies are pretty varied, so you can feel different sorts of emotions. Even if there are painful songs, there are fun songs about a love that’s ripening…
Q.) Tell us a story about (something that happened during) recording!
Suzuki: When I was recording the song “Midnight Temptation”, I caught a cold and my voice wouldn’t come out. I thought, “This is such bad timing!”, but since there were a lot of parts in the song where I sang like I was whispering, I told the director, “Actually, I was fine with my voice like this.” My voice was huskier and at a lower pitch than usual. It didn’t even sound like my own voice. In this album, each of the members was featured as the main (vocalist) in a song, but in my “main” song “Lululululu”, even though the tempo was slow, the key was really high, and recording was horrible because I couldn’t put the emotions into it. Anyway, the key was the only thing I could think about. As we got towards the end, it got steadily more difficult.
Yajima: I was also singing “Lululululu” at the recording, and it was awful. In the beginning, we hadn’t decided who was going to be the main in this song, and I was thinking, “What should I do about how high ‘Lululululu’ is?”
Suzuki: Right now, I’m able sing songs that were difficult for me in the past because the key was so high, but with “Lululululu”, I felt that it was Tsunku-san’s challenge for me to grow up (as a singer), so I thought, “I’ll look forward and do my best.”
Q.) By the way, we encountered you guys right as you were about to do vocal training before the live performance. Is that what you always do?
Yajima: Yup. We stretch and warm-up our voices every time.
Q.) You did some unique training so that you guys could roll your ‘R’. How well did that turn out?
Suzuki: It’s good for warming up my throat, so before I sing, it’s good to do that♪
Yajima: As I gradually raise the pitch of my voice and switch from my natural voice into falsetto, I can change the note smoothly by rolling my R’s.
Q.) Are you feeling yourself grow up by continuing your voice training?
Yajima: Up until I passed my Hello! Pro Kids audition, my forte wasn’t in singing. I feel that being able to sing on stage is a result of my voice training.
Suzuki: I also feel like I’ve grown up because of my voice training. When I hear myself singing at live performances, I think about how much I’ve spread my vocal range!
source/translated by: TOKYOHIVE