Morning Musume '25 (モーニング娘。 '25, Mōningu Musume Two-Five.; lit. "Morning Girls" or "Morning Daughters"), formerly and commonly known as Morning Musume (モーニング娘。, Mōningu Musume.), is a Japanese girl group associated with Up-Front Promotion. The group was produced by singer-songwriter and record producer Tsunku, who composed the majority of their songs until 2014. Since their formation, the group has seen changes in their membership, with the current members of the group consisting of Sakura Oda, Miki Nonaka, Maria Makino, Akane Haga, Reina Yokoyama, Rio Kitagawa, Homare Okamura, Mei Yamazaki, Rio Sakurai, Haruka Inoue, and Ako Yumigeta.

After the release of their indies single, "Ai no Tane", in 1997, Morning Musume made their official debut in 1998 with the single "Morning Coffee." Their highest-selling single, "Love Machine" (1999), was the first single to reach no. 1 on the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart and sold over 1 million copies upon release. In 2012, the group held the second highest overall single sales of a female group on the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart, with the Oricon record of most top-ten singles, having 64 of them.^{[citation needed]}

Morning Musume is credited with the revival of the idol industry in Japan in the late 1990s. Morning Musume has been the flagship group of the musical collective Hello! Project, becoming the basis of other groups under the collective, such as Country Musume, Coconuts Musume, and Ice Creamusume. In addition, Morning Musume has spun off with multiple successful sub-units, such as Tanpopo, Petit Moni, Mini-Moni, Morning Musume Sakuragumi, Morning Musume Otomegumi, Morning Musume Tanjō 10nen Kinentai, Ecomoni, and Dream Morning Musume.

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.

In early 1998, the girls were ready with their first official single, "Morning Coffee". The success of this single (hitting number six on the Japanese pop charts) brought them three new members known as the second generation: Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, and Sayaka Ichii, bringing the total member count to eight. The second single, "Summer Night Town", was the first single of the new lineup—a mature pop tune about unsuccessfully attempting to hide one's true feelings. Their third single, "Daite Hold on Me!", continued in the same vein musically as Summer Night Town, and managed to hit number one on the charts. Leader Nakazawa also started her solo career.

"First Time" was released in July 1998, featuring the singles "Ai no Tane", "Morning Coffee" and "Summer Night Town".

That year, Tsunku also formed Tanpopo, the first subgroup of Morning Musume, with Kaori Iida, Aya Ishiguro, and Mari Yaguchi. Tanpopo touted slower, more mature songs.

When "Morning Coffee" was released, however, Morning Musume's label Zetima went by a different name, One Up Music (One Up is a combination of Warner Music Japan (the label that distributed One Up Music's catalog) and Up-Front Group (One Up Music's parent company)). However, in April 1998, one month before the release of "Summer Night Town", One Up Music ended its distribution deal with Warner, and was rebranded as Zetima when it merged with Y.J. Sounds (another former Up-Front Group-affiliated label). Distribution rights would be given to Sony Music Japan's sub label Epic Records for "Summer Night Town", "First Time", and all of Zetima's subsequent releases.