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Mitsuo Terada (寺田 光男 Terada Mitsuo, born October 29, 1968 in Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan), better known professionally as Tsunku (つんく, often written as つんく♂), is a prolific Japanese record producer, songwriter, and vocalist. He is best known for having two major roles in the Japanese music landscape: first as the lead singer of the popular rock group Sharam Q, and now as the producer, primary songwriter, and main studio backing vocalist for idol supergroup Morning Musume, in addition to Aya Matsuura and other associated artists under the Hello! Project banner, for whom he has written and produced a number of chart-topping hits. He has also produced music for other Japanese artists, including Ayumi Hamasaki when she debuted.[citation needed] His musical influences include The Beatles,[1] Queen, and Onyanko Club.
[edit] HistoryIn June 2006, Tsunku married Kanako Idemitsu (出光 加奈子), a 25 year-old former model from Fukuoka.[2] Tsunku later worked with Nintendo and J.P.ROOM to create the music video game, Rhythm Tengoku. It was released for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance on August 3, 2006, and later as an arcade on September 20, 2007. He also worked on Rhythm Heaven for the DS.[1] On October 1, 2006, it was announced that Tsunku had created a new company called TNX consisting of singers such as Ami Tokito and other people including Tatsuya Naka, a magician who appeared on Hello! Morning. On September 26, 2007, Tsunku released a compilation album with the temporary title of "Sharam Q ~ Morning Musume" ~Tsunku 15 Years in Entertainment Commemoration Album~, containing songs by both Sharam Q and Morning Musume, and another one on December 5, 2007 titled Tsunku Best Work Collection, containing songs sung by Tsunku himself.[3] On March 24, 2008, Tsunku announced that his wife was expecting their first child in May, after being already eight months pregnant at the time.[4] The next day, Tsunku revealed on his blog that his wife was actually expecting twins.[5] Tsunku then announced on April 30, 2008 that his wife had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl through natural childbirth. An article stated, "The boy is healthy while the girl is expected to spend a few days in the incubator before rejoining the family."[6] Currently, Tsunku's solo career is on hold as he deals with an unspecified throat condition. [edit] Music composition and lyrical works[edit] Hello! ProjectTsunku is responsible for majority of the musical composition and lyrics in Hello! Project, noticeably for Morning Musume where all of their singles have ranked in the Oricon Weekly Singles Top 5 (excluding "Morning Coffee" and "Mikan"). His works are mainly pop-oriented with catchy melodies and romantic, idealistic and sometimes even humorous lyrics which are pitched to appeal to a young audience. However, many of the female vocalists who perform his songs have a large, dedicated fan base composed of older male wota, mostly in their twenties and thirties. Some of his more recent works are dark, mature and hard-hitting, such as "Onna ni Sachi Are", "Kanashimi Twilight" and "Resonant Blue". Although he can create regular rock songs and even relatively simple acoustic pieces, he is best known for creating synthesizer-driven music with characteristics such as rapid chord changes, layers of contrapuntal instrumental phrases, melodic basslines, and extensive use of programming, as well as guitar riffs and solos which suggest a subtle yet distinct hard rock or heavy metal influence on his songwriting (such as in Morning Musume's "Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii Jan" and ℃-ute's "Forever Love"). Typical vocal arrangements in the songs he writes for Hello! Project's groups tend to revolve around the members taking turns at singing lines and sometimes even short phrases in quick succession, building up to a chorus in which all or most members sing in unison rather than using vocal harmonies; any harmonies that are present in the songs are often sung by Tsunku himself, sometimes with the help of other backing singers, notably Atsuko Inaba. However there have been some exceptions, such as the Morning Musume songs "Morning Coffee", "Furusato", "Memory Seishun no Hikari", "Love Machine" and "I Wish", where most (if not all) of the harmonies were sung by the group's members themselves. [edit] List of music composition and lyrical works
[edit] Discography[edit] Albums
[edit] Singles
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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