Pizzicato Five -- Romantique 96

The always chic Ms. Nomiya

I bought Pizzicato Five's "Romantique 96" for a couple of reasons: 1) I knew about P5 since watching their impressionable appearance on "The New Music" when the Toronto music program highlighted the latest in Japanese music and then hearing stuff about their inherent coolness filtering in when I was in Tokyo, and 2) a couple of the tracks were used as themes for a couple of late-night TV shows I viewed on TV Asahi in the mid-90s. And frankly speaking, I knew I had to get at least one P5 album for my collection. In this case, their 12th album.



When I buy an album of enka songs, my imagination focuses on one particular neighbourhood in Tokyo....perhaps Asakusa or Ginza or Shinbashi. When I get an Anri or TUBE album, it goes to the beaches of Shonan or Hawaii. But with "Romantique 96", it's as if Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴） and Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽） are tempting me (and succeeding) to hop on their pink and flower-covered chartered jet to travel the globe to make the Mother of All World-Hopping Tours of Fun, Fun, Fun. The album starts quietly with "Mezame"(めざめ...The Awakening)....almost like a gentle push out of bed, a warmup stretch, a grab for that java, before Pizzicato Five makes a rousing invitation to join them in the next track, "Sekai de Ichiban Funky na Band"(世界でいちばんファンキーなバンド....Welcome to the Circus)....and we are off! The next song is the one above, "Jet Ki no House"(ジェット機のハウス....Flying High), a riff by Fantastic Plastic Machine in which our flight attendant cheerfully gets us ready and going for that trip from New York to San Francisco, although the feeling throughout the album is far more far-reaching.

Our next stop seems to be in warmer climes as we get into "Ice Cream Meltin' Mellow", hip-hop and Shibuya skippy pop mixing in like that puddle of Neapolitan strawberry, vanilla and chocolate forming on the sidewalk. Listening to this track, I can imagine people just galloping under the summer sun to get that soft cone. This was one of the songs that was a late-night theme for the brief CNN nightly report of all things. Back in those days, Ted Turner's network apparently wasn't all that readily available in Japan, and TV Asahi, being the Japanese affiliate of the network, created this 5-minute segment at 12:55 a.m. with an English-speaking announcer. Still can't see Wolf Blitzer strutting to this one....Anderson Cooper I can, though.

The other track to be made into another late-night theme on TV Asahi was "San Gatsu Umare" (３月生まれ...Nata Di Marzo), a flirty French Latin tune about getting dragged out by a whimsical buddy onto the dance floor. Those opening strings started up the show which followed the CNN report; it was some kind of 15-minute sitcom featuring tarento RanRan Suzuki and actress Naoko Iijima.

Somehow with "Good", we're back into my old stomping grounds....in a Tokyo English conversation school with Maki as my congenial student and the score from any of a dozen 60s Hollywood romantic comedies as the background music. No, it's not quite that hellish, actually. Fantastic Plastic Machine was also behind the arrangements here, and he creates a rather comically breezy soundscape, and even the P5 catchphrase makes its presence known here. The clip of this song being performed at a concert was shown on "The New Music" where Maki is doing her loopy repetition drill....the first time I saw it, I just thought, "Ohhhhhhhhhkay........"

The last song here is "Kanashii Uta"(悲しい歌...Triste) which brings back memories of 70s soul along with some of what British acts like Swingout Sister and The Style Council came up with in the 80s. I really like the piano and the brass which gives out that urban groove. The single cut of the song came out in October 1995, about a month after the album's release.

Pizzicato Five kept the musical travelogue going with "Romantique 96", and like any good tour guide, never made it boring. And I'm sure their other albums were very representative of the Shibuya-kei genre, but if there were a leader among equals in their discography, I can bet that this album would be a nominee.

Pizzicato Five -- Romantique 96