The Recording Directors:
Hashimoto Shin (overall direction)
Taisei (ANGERME & Juice=Juice)
Yamao Masato (Country Girls, Kobushi Factory & Tsubaki Factory)
Kamata Koji (Tsunku♂ songs & Morning Musume ’18)
— “Taiki Bansei” was the first single for S/mileage after the group was renamed to ANGERME, making it a big milestone song for them. Did you already feel confident about the song during its production stage?
Hashimoto: Not only was it their first song after being renamed, it was also the first non-Tsunku♂-produced song we were putting out there.
Nakajima Takui’s original (Nakajima’s ska beat-based version of the song was completed earlier, making ANGERME’s version a cover even though it was released before the Nakajima version) was very powerful, and so our focus was to get the H!P version to sound as funky as possible. We ended up giving it one extra chorus, too, compared to Nakajima’s version. We got the arranger, Suzuki Shunsuke, to tweak the arrangement multiple times and it was recorded using as much live instrumentation as possible. We wanted to make it sound as lively as we could. Not having any solo lines in the song aside from the bridge was also another experiment.
Still, we were very worried if the would accept the song or not. Hearing the audience getting fired-up during the song’s first performance at the Hello!Con was such a relief to us… Having nothing to lose, we also submitted it as our entry for the ending song of “Mecha-Mecha Iketeru!” The fact that it was actually chosen was all thanks to the song’s power. So to us it’s a very a memorable song in many ways.
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