Fantastic Plastic Machine featuring Maki Nomiya -- Dear Mr. Salesman

Couldn't get more Shibuya-kei than this song and its cute kitschy video. I'd been trying to track the YouTube video down for several minutes last night under the impression that it was a Pizzicato Five song, only to figure out that it was a Fantastic Plastic Machine contribution. Under the circumstances, the error was understandable since "Dear Mr. Salesman" has P5's delectable Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）as guest vocalist and the music by FPM himself has all that wonderful 60s swing.

"Dear Mr. Salesman" was part of the seminal "The Fantastic Plastic Machine", FPM's debut album from October 1997, considered to be one of the audio bibles of Shibuya-kei. Excerpts of the song have been used ad nauseum as background music to introduce various segments on Japanese variety programming to the extent that I can only assume Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）must have "bachelor pads" all over the jet-setting globe from all the copyright money he's made.

I found out that it's one of the relatively few tunes that Nomiya has sung entirely in English, and she acquits herself very well. She always puts the pizzazz in either English or Japanese. And that music has me reliving every game show, DeVol-scored sitcom and a lot of light 60s movies. Last but not least, I have to really find out who that "old guy" nattering away throughout the song is. He sounds like the Pepperidge Farm narrator who used to say "Pepperidge Farm remembers..." in those old commercials.

The song is fun enough to listen to but I think the video makes for a fine accompaniment. I wonder if that fellow in it is Tanaka himself.