''2nd W'' is the second album by the

Hello! Project is a Japanese musical collective consisting of all female recording artists and groups under Up-Front Promotion, a subsidiary of Up-Front Group. The name was initially used as Michiyo Heike and Morning Musume's fan club name in 1999, but ha ...

duo W and their first album recorded and released after its members,

Ai Kago is a Japanese actress and former singer. In 2000, Kago debuted as a 4th generation member of the idol girl group Morning Musume. During her time in the group, she was also part of Mini-Moni and other Hello! Project sub-groups. In 2004, Kago de ...

and

Nozomi Tsuji , known professionally by her birth name (born June 17, 1987) is a Japanese media personality, singer, and blogger. In 2000, she began her career as a singer for Japanese girl band Morning Musume. Tsuji later found success with related groups ...

, "graduated" from

Morning Musume , formerly simply and colloquially referred to as , are a Japanese girl group, holding the second highest overall single sales (of a female group) on the Oricon, Oricon charts as of February 2012, with the Oricon record of most top ten singles ...

in August 2004. Unlike their first album, ''

Duo U&U is the debut album by W, the duo formed by Morning Musume and Mini-Moni members and longtime friends Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji. Recorded while they were winding down their duties as Morning Musume and Minimoni members, the album consists of cov ...

'', which was all cover material, ''2nd W'' contains a mix of originals (composed by mentor and Hello! Project founder Tsunku) and covers of classic

Shōwa period Shōwa may refer to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufacturer, affiliated with the Honda keiretsu Japanese eras * Jōwa (Heian ...

female pop duo songs. Three of the songs, the Tsunku originals "Ai Ii na!" and "Robo Kiss" and a cover of

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's "Koi No Fuga", were released as singles in the months prior to the album; the latter selection was also the single released in advance of the album. Many of the songs on the album, both originals and covers, center around the topic of becoming, or about to no longer be, the age of seventeen. At the time of the album's release, Ai Kago had turned 17 a month prior, while Nozomi Tsuji would turn 18 that June. Another track, "Da-bu-ru-yuu Joshi Koutou Gakkou Kouka", is the mock-theme song for the fictional "Dabaruyuu Girls Senior School" (The nonsense word "Dabaruyuu" being a corruption of the duo's name) and ties in with the album cover concept depicting Kago and Tsuji at a school ceremony. The duo would release one more single while retaining their earlier cute image, " Ai no Imi wo Oshiete!". Their following single, " Miss Love Tantei", would see the pair utilizing a more mature look and sound. The first press of the album comes with three photo cards and comes in special packaging.

Track listing

# – 1:11 # – 4:05 # – 3:35 # – 3:48 # – 3:49 # – 5:21 # – 3:03 # 18 ~My Happy Birthday Comes!~ – 4:17 # – 2:19 (

) # INTERLUDE – 0:24 # – 3:10 ( Junko Sakurada) # – 3:28 # – 4:18

Musical Personnel

– vocals (lead, harmony and background) *

– vocals (lead, harmony and background) * Tsunku – additional backing vocals (Tracks 1, 5) *Nao Tanaka – Keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Track 1), string arrangement (Track 3) *Shoichiro Hirata – Keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Tracks 2, 11) *Manao Doi – guitar (Track 2) *Hiroaki Takeuchi – backing vocals (Track 2) *Yohey Tuskasaki –

scratching Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two record ...

(Tracks 2, 9) *Yuichi Takahashi – guitar, keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Tracks 3, 4, 7) *Sting Miyamoto – bass (Tracks 4, 13) * Atsuko Inaba – additional backing vocals (Tracks 4, 8) *Hideyuki "Daichi" Suzuki – guitar, keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Track 5) *Ume – guitar (Track 5) *Akira – keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming, additional backing vocals (Track 6) *Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus – male chorus (Track 7) *Yoshiaki Nakamura – narration (Track 7) *Miki Tominaga – narration (Track 7) *Shunsuke Suzuki – guitar, keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Tracks 8, 12) *Hideyuki Komatsu – bass (Track 8) *Hiroshi Iida – percussion (Track 8) *Yoshinari Takegami – saxophone (Track 8) *Masanori Suzuki – trumpet (Track 8) *Wakaba Kawai – trombone (Track 8) *Koji Makaino – keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Track 9) *Hideki Oguro – tympani (Track 9) *Yasuhiko Tachibana – upright bass (Track 12) *Keiichiro Uemura – drums (Track 12) *Yoshihiko Katori – vibraphone (Track 12) *Makoto Hirahara – additional backing vocals (Track 12) *Cher Watanabe – keyboards, drum machine, MIDI programming (Track 13) *Yasuo Asai – guitars (Track 13) *Armin "Takeshi" Linzbichler – drums (Track 13)

External links

UP-FRONT WORKS W discography entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:2nd W W (group) albums Zetima albums 2005 albums