Pizzicato Five/Plastics -- Good

First off, a bit of humble Canadiana from me. Back in the 1980s...and yep, I actually lived during the fashion of that decade which you can see in all its blow-dry glory in the above video...there was a local music news program on City-TV called "The New Music" (no connection with Yuming's genre) which not only featured the latest hitmakers but also the up-and-comers in Toronto and the rest of Canada. For all of the cable news nuts out there, that fellow sporting the electric guitar and mullet? It's John Roberts...currently at FOX; he used to be known as J.D. Roberts 3 decades ago.

Now, why did I bring that first paragraph up in a blog about old Japanese music? Well, one night back then, "The New Music" devoted its one hour to the wild and wacky world of Japanese popular music years and years before AKB48, Perfume and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu made the scene. And during those fascinating 60 minutes, I got to see Pizzicato Five for the very first time. There was the divine Ms. Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）looking like a disco diva flouncing about in some music video and then there was some concert footage of P5 with Nomiya crazily spouting out the following lyrics: "Nice to meet you, nice to meet you, nice to meet you..."

Yep, that was pretty nuts. OK, I thought...they probably won't be getting onto "Music Station" any time soon. Well, little did I know. And many years later, I would pick up one of the band's albums, "Romantique 96" from September 1995. I'd already gotten used to and started to enjoy Pizzicato Five's  "new stereophonic sound spectacular" from the land of Shibuya. And I would make my re-acquaintance with that wacky song that first introduced me to Nomiya and company, "Good".

"Good" was that hypercaffeinated tune that mixed in that part of the distinctive P5 sound which resembled the stuff from DeVol, the grand master of American sitcom theme songs of the 60s and early 70s, and French pop. Lyrically, I thought it was a recording of some of my English lessons after copious amounts of alcohol or something in a more weed-like form. Personally I would have loved to have seen Maki dance to "Good". It would have been an epic medley of all of the big dance moves from that decade from The Swim to The Hitchhike.

I've mentioned about earworms, especially when it comes to anime theme songs. Well, I think I may have across the very first example of an eyeworm (as disgusting as that sounds) via the above video. At first, I thought it was another example of the GEDDAN phenomenon. Not sure where that CG footage came from but it relates the crazy happy-happy-joy-joy to a royal T. Try not watching under the influence.

Then I got some more bonus information. Thanks to some of the comments for the YouTube video, I managed to find out that "Good" hadn't been an original P5 tune after all. It was actually a cover of New Wave band Plastics' 3rd single from 1980. Well, that was a bit of a full circle starting with an 80s Canadian show and then finishing up with an 80s Japanese song, wasn't it? Anyways, the original song has that somewhat avant-gardish vibe that I would usually associate with something that would appear on another old Canadian music show that I used to know called "City Limits". Written by co-vocalist Chica Sato（佐藤チカ）and written by guitarist Hajime Tachibana（立花ハジメ）, I think their "Good" could be considered to be the ancestor of the image of all that is appealingly nutty and wacky about J-Pop from overseas.