Morning Musume

, formerly and commonly known as and colloquially referred to as , is a Japanese girl group, holding the second highest overall single sales (of a female group) on the Oricon charts as of February 2012, with the Oricon record of most top-ten singles, having 64 of them. Morning Musume was formed in 1997 by rock singer-songwriter turned record producer Tsunku, who later composed the vast majority of the group's songs over the decade. They are the lead group of Hello! Project that specialises in upbeat, pop-oriented music coupled with dance performance. The group produced several splinter groups, and often collaborates with other Hello! Project acts, including Country Musume, Berryz Kobo, Cute, Melon Kinenbi, and V-u-den. The group's name can be translated as "Morning Girls" or "Morning Daughters"; it consists of members mostly in their late adolescence and early 20s. History 1997-1998: Formation and beginnings Japanese producer Tsunku started the group in 1997 through an audition for a female rock vocalist for his band Sharam Q. The audition was held on the Japanese TV show Asayan. The winner was Michiyo Heike, later to become a soloist under what would eventually become known as Hello! Project. Tsunku decided to form a girl group consisting of five of the runners-up: Natsumi Abe, Yuko Nakazawa, Kaori Iida, Asuka Fukuda, and Aya Ishiguro. They were issued a challenge to sell 50,000 copies of their demo single, "Ai no Tane", with just five days of promotion events. They managed the feat in four promotion days (spread out over November 1997) in a very grassroots manner, and Tsunku began his mission to create the most famous all-girl group in Japan.