Country Musume -- Yukigeshiki（雪景色）

 

Man, those were quite the hey days for Hello! Project（ハロー!プロジェクト）, the huge Tsunku-created female aidoru umbrella under which resided the mighty Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）. And entering the 21st century from the 1990s, other groups and solo acts germinated such as singer Miki Fujimoto（藤本美貴）and the relatively recent OCHA NORMA.

I also recollect there being a few groups under Hello! Project that also had the name Musume. Except for a relatively few exceptions, I didn't dig too deeply into these other groups, but one group's name has stayed with me, Country Musume（カントリー娘。）. Unfortunately, the one reason for that is due to a tragedy that befell them. Country Musume was to have debuted as a trio: Rinne Toda（戸田鈴音）, Azusa Kobayashi（小林梓）, and Hiromi Yanagihara（柳原尋美）. However, just before the release of their debut single (which had already been recorded) in July 1999, Yanagihara was killed in an auto accident with Kobayashi departing the group after its release. 

Toda stayed on as a solo act representing Country Musume and as such, she released the group's 2nd single "Yukigeshiki" (Snowscape) in November 1999. It stood out for the fact that not only did Tsunku（つんく♂）compose the song but Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）provided the lyrics. Heavy with the country music vibe, the Sapporo-born Toda sings about how frustrated she's been getting with the endless amounts of snow around her but making the best of a seasonally frustrating time by getting together with the boyfriend and hitting the slopes with a snowboard. That's right...take a negative and turn it into a positive!

What I hadn't known about Country Musume is that the group underwent a lot of personnel changes (but then again, Morning Musume was no stranger to that either) including the entry of some Morning Musume members with that Hokkaido lineage, continuing until 2009. Then in 2014, the group returned but experienced a name change going from Country Musume to Country Girls after which they continued for about another five years before calling it a day in 2019.