I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Pizzicato Five -- Baby Portable Rock
My favourite Pizzicato 5 song, "Baby Portable Rock" is quintessentially Shibuya-kei and it reminds me a lot of DeVol, the king of American 60s & 70s sitcom scores ("Bewitched", "Family Affair", etc.). It's just a happy-go-lucky jaunt of a pop song, and the video has Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi（野宮真貴・小西康陽）, who wrote and composed the number, dressing cute and dancing cute. Just watching the video, I got that craving to run down to Shibuya, Harajuku and Omotesando.
"Baby Portable Rock"was released in March 1996 and peaked at No. 19 on Oricon. The annual Oricon figures had it ranked at a somewhat humbler No. 192, but hey, it's still my darling. It did get its mainstream opening as a jingle for the Nissan Mistral as you can see below. Strangely enough, Nomiya's old group in the 80s was known as Portable Rock.
Thanks J-Canuck for this post on Pizzicato Five. It's too bad P5 doesn't get more airplay/love in Japan as they seem to be more popular outside of Japan for some reason. In fact my first exposure to P5 wasn't through their Japanese releases but rather through their Matador release "Made in USA". I loved their songs like "Twiggy Twiggy / Twiggy Vs. James Bond" and "Magic Carpet Ride".
I think P5 seems to be in the same position as another legendary band, Shonen Knife, in that respect. I mean, there is even a tribute album dedicated to SK for which I think even Kurt Cobain or Nirvana participated in...back in Japan, most people just gave a quizzical look if you mentioned the name. Mind you, I recall seeing one commercial whose jingle was the band singing a cover version of The Carpenters' "Top of the World".
But getting back to Pizzicato Five, Maki and Yasushi definitely pushed some boundaries with their uber-60s pop culture and Audrey Hepburn look. capsule initially started out in the same way, and I think even Yuming kinda took on the same look for a recent album cover.
Thanks J-Canuck for this post on Pizzicato Five. It's too bad P5 doesn't get more airplay/love in Japan as they seem to be more popular outside of Japan for some reason. In fact my first exposure to P5 wasn't through their Japanese releases but rather through their Matador release "Made in USA". I loved their songs like "Twiggy Twiggy / Twiggy Vs. James Bond" and "Magic Carpet Ride".
ReplyDeleteI think P5 seems to be in the same position as another legendary band, Shonen Knife, in that respect. I mean, there is even a tribute album dedicated to SK for which I think even Kurt Cobain or Nirvana participated in...back in Japan, most people just gave a quizzical look if you mentioned the name. Mind you, I recall seeing one commercial whose jingle was the band singing a cover version of The Carpenters' "Top of the World".
ReplyDeleteBut getting back to Pizzicato Five, Maki and Yasushi definitely pushed some boundaries with their uber-60s pop culture and Audrey Hepburn look. capsule initially started out in the same way, and I think even Yuming kinda took on the same look for a recent album cover.