[Electro Pop]
No.98 "Summer Breeze" by Negicco
Hi. Today's song is "Summer Breeze" by "Negicco".
The singer "Negi-cco" is a 3-piece female idol group formed to promote the sale of "Negi" (Green-onion) vegitables.
Before startting the main content, please allow us to share some time to introduce "Negi" vegetable (Green onion), since we think it might help you a bit to catch the meaning of their group name "Negicco".
But if you are in a hurry, please click the switch below to jump to the main article.
Negi
"Negi" (Green onion) is a vegetable looks like below. It is an almost essential ingredient for daily life of Japanese.
Therefore, a lot of production regions exist, and are competing each other.
And the pop group, "Negi-cco" was initially formed by an agricultural group in "Niigata" prefecture, to promote their "Negi" green onions.
By the way, according to a neighbor who was a teacher of Japanese, the suffix, "-cco" appearing in "Negi-cco" directly means children. But it often adds nuances like small, cute, or origin, or affiliation of the people.
Like.
- "Edo-cco" = Born in Tokyo
- "Musume-cco" = young women
- "Ure-cco" = popular entertainer, or person
- "Hiyo-cco" = Newbie or inexperienced
etc.
(It's (-cco) a casual word, so please mind a bit when use.)
So, "Negi-cco" means the children of "Negi" vegetable, but we get nuances, like they are a group of cuties, and promoting "Negi" green onions.
In fact, "Negi(Green onion)" is an almost essential vegetable in Japanese cooking.
For "Sukiyaki", "Miso soup" even "cup noodle", it is used as one of the main ingredients or garnishes, and being served throughout the year.
Because of its unique smell and strong taste, some people cannot enjoy them at first, especially when they are served in fresh.
But once cooked, the taste become milder and sweeter, and easy to eat.
Please try to taste it during your stay in Japan next time.
Oops. All are hot dishes good for winter. Here is a cold one.
(Cold soumen noodle in ice water)
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Index
1. Song data
| Title | Summer Breeze |
|---|---|
| Artist | Negicco |
| Album Title | Negicco 2003~2012-BEST |
| Catalog Number | TPRC-0009 |
| Track No. | 9 |
| Duration | 4:00 |
| Released | 2012 |
| Publisher | T-Palette Records |
| Lyricist | connie |
| Composer | connie |
| Arranger | unknown |
- About the creators
connie
"Connie" is a lyricist, composer, arranger, DJ, and a producer for Negicco since their very beginning.
"Connie" is basically an ordinal businessman, and was not a professional musician until he participated with "Negicco".
But now, he is the producer of "Negicco", and the biggest contributor for promoting this minor & local idol-group popular in the nationwide, by continuously offering custom made high quality pop songs to the band.
"Connie" used to be holding a DJ event named "Tokimeki high school" since 2003, which introduces brand new idol pop songs in a party atmosphere.
At the same time, he was an earliest fan of "Negicco" which was formed about the same timing in Niigata-City, where is north west of Tokyo, and he lives.
One day, he requested "Negicco" to sing a theme song of the DJ event, which he made for, by joining his live event.
"Negicco" accepted the invitation and this created a link between them.
Since then, "connie" began to write songs exclusively for them even free of charges at their early days.
He has offered more than 50 pop songs, and all of them keeps very good quality. Certainly this is one of the biggest reason that "Negicco" gradually become famous among the music fans.
We would like to come back later on this since it will be a part of the main story of "Negicco".
Cover art
- Sound impressions
Electro pop sound
This seems to be a pop music by programming in 16-beat bouncing rhythm.
It sounds like a fully computerized music except the string-synthe part.
But as a whole, this is a very well arranged pop music. It is orthodox, soothing and listenable.
By the way, the instrumental part of this song is composed, arranged and played by "connie" by utilizing DAW(Digital audio workstation).
In fact, DAW is a powerful music development environment, and almost an essential tool for "local idols" like "Negicco".
Usually for the "Central idols", who are managed by dominant entertainment agencies (Will clarify more in the later section.), everything necessary are provided by them (management offices).
In contrast with it, "local idols" often or mostly have no back band play a music for them because of their very limited budget.
Under such tough environment, "connie" had continued to supply brilliant melodies in "listenable" sound. And helped "Negicco" to survive, and bloom.
- About the artist
Never Give Up Girls
Negicco debuted in 2003 with single "Koi-suru Negicco"(Negicco in love). Since then, 22 singles, and 4 original, 1 live, and 3 best albums have been released until now.
Green onion promotion
Now, "Negicco" is a prominent girl's pop group. But it was originally a local idol of Nii-gata prefecture formed in 2003, to promote a specially branded green onion from the area. There were 4 members at the beginning, but since 2008, it has been three.
The team was organized as an ad hoc, since the promotion period was set only for 1 month. It was however extended later because they became popular.
Central & Local idol
Traditionally, the promotion, in other word "manufacture" of idol stars had been an exclusive business for the record companies or big entertainment agencies mostly in Tokyo.
They search for potential stars, give training, then let them debut to the nation wide with huge amount of promotion plan and budget. We might name them "central idol".
Conversely, the "local idols" are the stars promoted by supportive regional business bodies and a team of passionated individuals. The stars usually work as a regional charactors within a limited area.
This is still a relatively young concept appeared around 2000. But quite a few of major cities in Japan already secured their own local idols.
Limited resource
As you can imagine, the resources that "local idols" have are usually relatively limited.
They often have to face with the shortages of budget and expertise to keep business running.
No costume, no song
"Negicco" was of course not an exception. They had to purchase stage costumes by themselves at the super market. And they even could not have enough songs to sing because of the limited budget.
Support from "connie"
Therefore, a support from "connie" must have been really helpful for them.
Thanks to "connie", not only lyrics and melody, but also a high quality backing were also provided by utilizing DAW(Music computer) with minimized cost.
This enabled "Negicco" immediately sing a new song.
Hand baked CD-R
The members of "Negicco" then record their vocal part on the music. After the mix-down, each member record the hot new song to the CD-R one by one for making hand made CDs to sell them at a group's concert venue.
Major debut
It seems they continued such efforts quite a long time. But through a lot of challenges, their name was getting more well known.
And finally in 2011, a major label asked them to join.
(Ref: tower.jp, interview, Negicco 2003～2012)
Now, we would like to take a break, and continue the article in the next time, since it is already a little too long. Thank you.
Finally, a music clip from their promotion video.
# Nee Bardia
(My dear Bardia)
- Samples from online music stores
About the samples
Please go to the page below, and just play or click track No.9.
Trial button is on the left side of the song title.
AD : Free listening samples
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
Apple Music(jp)
9
8. Japanese Letters
| Song Title | Summer Breeze |
|---|---|
| Artist | Negicco |
| Album Title | Negicco 2003-2012-BEST |
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