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.
Showing posts with label Fantastic Plastic Machine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fantastic Plastic Machine. Show all posts
Once again, I meet up with a singer who doesn't have a lot of information online backing her up aside from her name: Calin. But she did make her debut in 1996 with the (probably one-and-only) album "Teen Tonic" and one of the tracks is "Tomodachi no Samba" (A Friend's Samba). Although the producer was Yukihiro Fukutomi（福富幸宏）, the biggest name here is Shibuya-kei king Fantastic Plastic Machine who came up with the words, music and swift arrangement, and yep, it's Shibuya-kei in spades including that "dabadaba" vocal effect which I've heard in one 1960s novelty song. Calin herself is kept on her toes with her mixture of scatting and light and dainty singing.
"Teen Tonic" is available on iTunes. The only significant comment on the album is that Fukutomi had invited a number of guests including Swedish producer Tore Johansson aboard the production of the album (and the following year, he would help out one other more well-known singer), and the commenter was wondering aloud whether the producer had been going for his own Pizzicato Five with Calin. I wonder myself but if any of you have any other information on her, please let us know.
A few days ago in the Comments section for Galali's "Clear Summer", I received an anonymous statement about the Okinawan song and dance duo HALCALI getting the "Plastic Love" treatment. Their 22-year-old song "Otsukare Summer" has hit the big time via SNS.
Apparently, the song from their September 2003 debut album"Halcali Bacon"（ハルカリベーコン）(I posted on another track "Electric Sensei"（エレクトリック先生）back in early August) went viral on TikTok over the past number of weeks or months, and though it was one of the relatively rare songs that didn't originally have Halca and Yucali dancing all about in a music video, no problems. Folks around the globe have picked up on that and provided their own choreography such as KanzakiAnna through her YouTube account.
The love has bounced back to the original recording company, FOR LIFE MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT because just yesterday, they released an animated music video for "Otsukare Summer"! Y'know, I had never heard of a loungy Latin-infused Shibuya-kei rap song before...now my life is complete. We can all thank not only HALCALI but also the songwriters Fantastic Plastic Machine and Masayuki Kumahara（熊原正幸）for providing this classy and catchy paean to the end of the hot season (which is next week).
As for the title, it's a pun on the very common phrase "otsukaresama"（お疲れ様）which literally means "Thank you for your hard work", so it's something that is used by folks in Japan to commend fellow workers or others who have done a great service for them such as furniture movers. I gather that I can also treat the punny title as "Thank You, Summer!". For a lot of the local sun worshippers, they are likely saying the same and lamenting the fact that it's going away so soon.
For the record, I've never flown First Class on any airliner and can only imagine that I could only enter that august part of a passenger plane by giving up my firstborn and a handful of internal organs. The above video is showing merely Business Class in the 1970s on a Qantas flight. First Class must involve thrones.
Maybe it's that image of fine flying and dining that Fantastic Plastic Machine was harboring in his mind when he came up with "First Class '77". There is that immediate sensation of soaring into the air and dreams coming true ("Fantasy Island" was on the air back then, if I remember correctly). In fact, I think the entirety of the song illustrates what flying must have been perceived as back in the day of Pan Am: a LUXURY experience. There are even the horns which reminded me of a theme song of many an American TV drama, especially one where travel is involved.
Excerpts of "First Class '77" have been heard by me on Japanese variety shows as background music or transitional music between segments, something that has become a trope with FPM's songs. The song itself was included as a track on the man's debut album "The Fantastic Plastic Machine" from October 1997. "Please, Stop!", which was my previous FPM entry, is a track mate on the album.
Yes, I think I will have that Beef Wellington with a glass of the finest Cabernet Sauvignon. It would make for a nice change from the roast beast and Pleistocene epoch hard roll that I'm usually used to.
Ahhh...the wonders of Supermarionation on LSD! You may be confused or terrified from watching the above video, but there's no doubt about the music fronting it. It's been over three years since I've posted anything by Fantastic Plastic Machine (the last one being for "Take Me To The Disco" in September 2021), but it's time to bring the illustrious Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）back to KKP with his "Please, Stop!".
Another track from his debut 1997 album"The Fantastic Plastic Machine", "Please, Stop!" joins "Dear Mr. Salesman", "Steppin' Out"and"Bachelor Pad" as fellow tracks covered on this blog. However, it's the only one that doesn't have anything written about it in either the J-Wiki or Wikipedia articles on the album. And to be honest, it's basically the same hip-swiveling sample repeated over and over again although listeners will also get that urge to shake up some martinis. It's telling me just to lay back on the lounge sofa in my leisure suit and wait for an especially dry one to come my way.
Thankfully, the dancehall denizens of Tokyo and Gunma were largely spared from my antics on the dance floor since I basically left all that behind with my university days and nights in the 1980s. Still, I did attend a few of the dance clubs during my two stints in Japan with the biggest one being Velfarre in Roppongi but I was merely a chaperone for the much younger students for that one. When I went in with them and a few of other other teachers, I hovered around the outer ring of the dance floor to make sure everyone was OK; an employee then approached and spoke to me as if I were a parent and reassured me that I could still keep tabs on my kids from one of the tables. I shuffled back there on my imaginary cane. The young'uns did appear considerably more youthful than me.
Anyways, that was about the time when this BEST album by the fantastic Fantastic Plastic Machine made its presence known on the store shelves. "Les Plus" was released in December 2001 (according to J-Wiki and Discogs) and not 2004 as stated on YouTube. Even back then, I knew that I wouldn't have been able to keep up even with the beats on the original FPM mix of "Take Me To The Disco" that launches "Les Plus". Dance stuff and Shibuya-kei are rolled up in this rollicking piece and at 37:05, there is the even more frenetic/funky and extended Malibu mix of the song.
For all those dancehall denizens in Japan, past and present, were FPM's works common things to hear in the discos of the nation? Enquiring minds (or my mind, anyways) want to know.
Tomoyuki Tanaka earned the first name of his nom du guerre, Fantastic Plastic Machine, by being able to loop a whole variety of disparate sounds into pure crazy catchiness, and for this particular song, that includes frenzied guitar striking, beeps and beats along with the inclusion of key words including the word "dance" by MC Su, a member of the hip hop group RIP SLYME.
Yup, "Dance Dance Dance Dance" is from FPM's 5th studio album"Imaginations" from February 2006. I mean, there shouldn't be anything by stringing those sounds together that would make me funk it up. And yet, each time I listen to "Dance Dance Dance Dance", I end up becoming that joyous fellow from the "Dancing Man at the Wedding" meme photo. Mind you, in all likelihood, he probably dances far better than I ever did at the Copa.
It's plainly evident in the music video above by houng ju mun that the lyrics state "How we doing?" but when I hear Su rap that out, I can't help but hear Joey from "Friends" saying his immortal line.
About a month ago, I put up a Fantastic Plastic Machine song,"The King of Pleasure" from his 2003 album"too". I always appreciate an artist who keeps his album titles nice and concise.
One other track from "too" is "Reaching for the Stars". With vocals by the British acid jazz band, INCOGNITO, compared with "The King of Pleasure", I think "Reaching for the Stars" has got more of a neo-disco sound and more of the sensation of some fellow spinning the discs for the beachgoers at sunset on Ibiza.
Plus, that music video seems to be plowing forth a couple of American sci-fi cultural references. If the Starchild from "2001: A Space Odyssey" grew up to become a beautiful woman with a terrifying manicure, she would be the one featured there. Then, there is that starscape and those space fighters which must have come from "Babylon 5".
Maybe this is more of a Friday night article, but I figure that for the final full day of summer, some FPM delights were in order.
It's been a while since I've put up an article regarding Fantastic Plastic Machine, and considering that we're getting close to another summer weekend, it's time for something fairly dance-worthy.
This is "The King of Pleasure" which belongs to FPM's February 2003 album"too". The album also contains "Why Not?", and for that article, I mentioned that it seems as if DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）had moved away from Shibuya-kei to head into a more club-friendly genre.
"The King of Pleasure" does invite all of those endorphins to come out and play with the percolating percussion and the thumping bassline, but it also brings in some other influences to the dance party. For one thing, I think there is some of that Steely Dan groove and a bit of disco at points. Another thing is that I do enjoy what sounds like a spacey steel pedal guitar to add some more flavour. It might get a bit repetitive at over seven minutes but folks may also be a little too busy enjoying their shimmying to notice.
I know that FPM has put out videos for his creations but "The King of Pleasure" doesn't have one. However, if one had been made for this song, I would have expected some of that Shibuya dance club scene spliced in with some 1950s song-and-dance troupe cutting up quite a rug in the studio. As for "too", that hit No. 35 on Oricon.
Early in the life of this blog, I provided an article on bird's single "Game" which was the impetus for me to get producer Shinichi Osawa's (大沢伸一...aka Mondo Grosso)April 2000 compilation album "Sakurahills Disco 3000". Did love the neo-disco that bird provided, and the version of that single on this particular compilation was just a shade under 10 minutes long.
Basically, that's what Osawa provides through his friends here: a set of remixes that brings together that old disco feeling incorporated into the contemporary clubbing atmosphere at the time. Some of the tracks stand out more than others, including the launching track "Discotique Murphy's Theme" by SHD 3000 and Murphy himself. Couldn't find out who exactly SHD 3000 was but I'm wondering if it's just another alias for Osawa himself. Yup, it's repetitive but the point is just to get you all warmed up on the dance floor and into the rhythm.
Monday Michiru will always be a welcome sound for sore ears. Thus, she is here with SHD 3000 to provide "Real Thing". Written and composed by Michiru herself, it's very nice to hear the good ol' sweeping and soaring R&B with some classy jazz. Could imagine darting among the skyscrapers of Manhattan on a magic flying carpet while listening to this one on a clear night.
I read about the band Kyoto Jazz Massive in my copy of Steve McClure's"Nippon Pop" years ago but didn't actually get to listen to the these fellows until I bought "Sakurahills Disco 3000". Their contribution to the album is "Substream" which also came out as one of their singles. According to their Wikipedia entry, they like to combine crossover jazz and electronic styles, and with "Substream", there is that mix of funk/soul with the improvisation of jazz with the result being something like the coolest AOR on a couple of cans of Red Bull. It certainly gave me wings.
One of the members, Hajime Yoshizawa（吉澤はじめ）, is on the Fender Rhodes and as I hear him noodling away, I couldn't help but be reminded of the late Vince Guaraldi when he was playing some of his "Peanuts" music in the 1970s entries of the beloved series with Charlie Brown & Snoopy. The other members are the brothers Shuya and Yoshihiro Okino（沖野修也・沖野好洋）.
These must be the cool kids of Seton Academy!
For the lack of a better expression, I guess Fantastic Plastic Machine's"Petitions" would be one of the more frantic chillout disco tunes that I've heard. It's been years and years since I was on the dance floor (and frankly, any disco that would have me nowadays would need the extra insurance), and "Petitions" is one of those songs that will have my legs twisting all over the place into a pretzel while my upper body goes all slow and rubbery. While FPM chugs up the beat, the sultriness is provided by the voice of Lori Fine, the vocalist of COLDFEET.
All these years, I've been waiting to get some excuse to get the legendary Earth Wind & Fire here. Well, now I've got the reason. The final track in "Sakurahills Disco 3000" is the Phats & Small Mutant Disco Vocal Mix of EW&F's just-as-legendary "September", known as "September 99". As soon as I got the video here, I turned up the volume solely as an automatic reflex.
I first got to know the original "September" back on the radio when I was in high school. Since then, I've never failed to listen to the song and appreciate it in the fall. The original was also a pretty short number but it's just so filled with fun and goodness, and when I heard that there was an extended remix, I just had to listen to it. If bird's"Game" was the bait that got me drawn to "Sakurahills Disco 3000", seeing the listing for "September 99" was the hook that finally landed me.
After a weird and not particularly pleasant week, I'm happy to relax a bit and blow off some steam. This is somewhat ironic since today it seems as if a telecommunications glitch managed to leave a wide swath of houses without TV or Internet across Southern Ontario (at least) for a few hours (my problem over the past week) and yet, my network has been holding the fort (knocking furiously on wood). I'm not an especially optimistic person by nature so I have been glaring at the new modem and receiver whenever I get a chance to ensure that they comply with my wishes.
Hopefully, many beautiful days are on their way, despite the threatening weather outside. Strangely enough, here is "Beautiful Days" by that club-mastering clone of mine, Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）, aka Fantastic Plastic Machine.
One of the tracks on his January 2001 album"beautiful.", "Beautiful Days" was written by FPM and composed by him and Dan Miyakawa. Considering that these are now the late stages of 2019, it's very nostalgic hearing even these sunny and comforting groovy beats while Haven L. Clayborne and Yoshie Nakano（中納良恵）from Ego-Wrappin' croon about the wistful dreams and hopes of the past versus the present. Nice music video as well about a couple of kids enjoying their suburban weekend. Meanwhile, FPM is looking over them like a distant babysitter.
If you're seeking to listen to something happy and calming but with some kick, here you go.
I heard that there was some sort of wedding today. Apparently, everyone was crazy about Harry and Meghan. Nice folks, but I wasn't willing to wake up at 4 am this morning to catch all of the festivities at Windsor. For the record, I would like to give my best wishes for their sussex...er, I mean success.
Not quite an earworm but it's short and sweet. And it's been about 2.5 years since I put up a song by Fantastic Plastic Machine. This is "Hey Ladies" which came from the 2009 album"FPM", and listening to it and watching the groovy visual interpretation, I got the feeling that Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）basically minced together every old piece of music from a 1960s movie theatre to introduce the feature presentation. Having been raised in my early years to the swinging lounge music of that decade via TV, there is a fun and nostalgic kick to the 2 minutes and 26 seconds.
And here I thought that FPM had kinda gotten away from the Shibuya-kei aesthetic after all those years. Mind you, it's almost been 10 years now since "FPM" came out so I'm kinda wondering what the man has been up to since then.
I had actually mentioned about "City Lights" by Fantastic Plastic Machine in my first article concerning FPM, "Electric Ladyland" all the way back in 2013, and was actually thinking about promoting it to full article. Well, fate was kind enough to lend a hand tonight. The original video had been deleted there so I decided to transfer the whole kit and kaboodle to a new page with the video re-uploaded.
Perhaps in a way I should have picked a more appropriate day of the week to feature "City Lights" since Monday night is hardly a great time to talk nighttime fun in the city. Friday or Saturday nights are far better but, hey, I might as well get it out of the way. The jazzy and snazzy song just flies at a mile a second thanks to that virtuoso saxophone fueling the ride through the Tokyo highways in the video above. It was featured in FPM's remix album"Contact" in October 2001.
I guess my affinity for the title can be explained by a couple of local Toronto TV shows I used to know. There was a fairly verbose celeb interviewer by the name of Brian Linehan who back in the 70s and 80s gained an admirable or irritating reputation depending on the interviewee in the way he asked questions. His show was called "City Lights" on City-TV, and Linehan basically rolled out a 1-minute preamble filled with encyclopedic historical knowledge on the celeb right in front of the celeb that he/she had thought was only known to him/her before the host finally unleashed the question. Below is his interview with James Earl Jones. If you have never seen a Darth laugh...
Also on City-TV, there was a late-night video show called "City Limits" (nope, not the same title but close enough) hosted by Christopher Ward which featured the more avant-garde, grungier and just plain weirder music videos from the 80s. I think "City Lights" by Fantastic Plastic Machine would have been featured just for the fact that it was an international video with some panache.
Just some months after my summer 1981 trip to Japan as a high school student, I was just walking around The (Hudson) Bay department store in my neighbourhood (it is still there) when I heard this song over the speakers. It had this good fast beat to it with this feeling of painting the town red. I was automatically drawn to it and so I walked over to the record section at the north end of the store (yep, The Bay actually sold records and tapes even in the boonies way back then).
The song was "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson who I had used to see as this angry New Waver stomping on the piano. But when I saw the video for the song, he looked very urbane in his tux as he sang about his time in The Big Apple. And what better place to step out than in Manhattan? I also liked the album cover for "Night and Day" which had the song as one of its tracks. Very classy.
Several years later, I was well into my Ichikawa stint in Japan, and one night, a few of us got together at a friend's apartment in neighbouring Urayasu (right by Tokyo Disneyland). My friend was not a J-Pop fan by any means but he did enjoy some of the more eclectic and alternative stuff, and that included Fantastic Plastic Machine. As we were all gabbing away in his living room, I suddenly heard a bossa nova version of the already fine "Steppin' Out" playing on his CD player. After doing a quick check of the album covers, it turned out it was indeed FPM behind this more lounge-y and comfy cover. With the bossa rhythm and the synths, I was surprised that it didn't get onto the soundtrack for Steven Soderbergh's version of "Ocean's Eleven" in 2001. However, I think it has made its way onto the background music segments in a number of Japanese variety shows over the years...usually when the topic is of cool relaxing restaurants for the young and hip in Tokyo.
"Steppin' Out" is a track on FPM's debut album, "The Fantastic Plastic Machine" which came out in October 1997. I've already written on a couple of other tracks, "Bachelor Pad" and "Dear Mr. Salesman". Although I never bought the album in Japan, I was able to get my own copy of it, thanks to an old friend here in Toronto.
Ginza's Wako Tower
The Joe Jackson original may have been about the bright lights and big city of New York, but there's also something pretty electric about stepping out into the various areas of downtown Tokyo. I couldn't afford to enter a majority of the happening places in The Big Sushi, but even walking around areas like Ginza, Shinjuku and Akasaka was fine walking entertainment for this old veteran.
I just remembered this happy bouncy instrumental piece by Fantastic Plastic Machine since this was one of the accompanying songs with his 4th single,"Why Not?" from 2002. Again like the main single, "Never Ever" doesn't really sound like Shibuya-kei per se but it's more of a technopoppy (emphasis on poppy) fling through a sunny park. I wouldn't be surprised if it has been used over the years as a montage piece of music on a variety show or even on a drama.
This version has some vocals in it, although I don't think they are really necessary.
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.
This was another one of those impulsive purchases by me when I was browsing through the CD shop...most likely Tower Records in Shibuya. I just heard this rather loopy and quirky song over the speakers, tracked it down and realized it was Fantastic Plastic Machine's 4th single titled "Why Not?". Featuring Ryohei Yamamoto, this came out in November 2002. Considering this was created by FPM, it didn't sound like his usual Shibuya-kei, Austin Powers-friendly output from the late 90s. I never had a huge collection by the fellow...something that I plan to rectify in the near future....but I figured that he had to evolve from the genre as we all entered the 21st century.
I didn't realize that there was an official music video for "Why Not?". But several months ago, I came across it on YouTube. A fair bit of skin n' tease here and on the cover of the CD itself.
I think there must be something about a number of these Shibuya-kei tunes that makes them popular as musical interludes/backgrounds for the vast majority of Japanese variety shows. And that something is the fact that a number of them sound like those old loungy jingles that were used in American variety/game shows and ads back in the 1950s and 1960s. That was true for one Kahimi Karie song, "Zoom Up", and for a Fantastic Plastic Machine tune, "Electric Ladyland". And the same goes for this short-but-sweet number, also by FPM, called "Theme of Luxury".
"Theme of Luxury" was basically used as just the musical doorman for FPM's 2nd album, "Luxury" which was released in September 1998. However, it's gone on as the one of the go-to tunes on those Japanese shows to introduce a segment somewhere in Tokyo or a particularly effervescent personality. And the barely one-minute sequence has that feeling of a young devil-may-care socialite racing around the most expensive boutiques of New York at warp speed, happily in thrall to her fashion and her wallet. Perhaps this would be the ideal theme for Carrie Bradshaw.
I have to say that the homemade videos for the song got the right tone, especially the one immediately above with all those old consumer products. I could almost imagine a studio announcer yelling, "And we'll be right back to 'The Price Is Right'!"
Of course, it's the International Man of Mystery himself, Austin Powers. His theme song will always be "Soul Bossa Nova"(or for those Canadians over 35 years of age....the theme song from the game show "Definition") by Quincy Jones. But I think this song by Shibuya-kei DJ/producer, Fantastic Plastic Machine can make for an ideal alternate theme for Powers...or his loft of shagedelic babes.
And what an appropriate title, too. With "Bachelor Pad", I can just imagine a Friday midnight show of the same title, hosted by the foppy secret agent himself as the song is playing in the background. Everybody would be shimmying like crazy, including this author. Even before the French kitten starts her "pa-pa-pa"-ing, that guitar sets that amazing beat.
"Bachelor Pad" came out in 1997 as a track on FPM's debut album, "The Fantastic Plastic Machine" before it got picked up for the soundtrack of the 2ndAustin Powers movie, "The Spy Who Shagged Me" in 1999.
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 60sHollywood 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.
When I read the writeup for DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）, aka Fantastic Plastic Machine, in Wikipedia, it mentioned that "Electric Ladyland" was used in a 2004 comedy titled "The Girl Next Door" with Canada's own Elisha Cuthbert (who played Kiefer Sutherland's daughter in "24"). Well, my experience with the song was that the first several seconds of it were being frequently used as musical segues in the morning or afternoon talk-variety shows in Japan at the time.
"Electric Ladyland" is a whimsically happy tune, almost comical. If Charlie Chaplin had been alive at the time, he would've danced to this. It seems to mix in elements of an old comedy instrumental soundtrack along with something from a pan-European movie from the 70s or 80s, and even DeVol, the master composer behind all those 60s American sitcom scores. Hey, that's what Shibuya-kei is all about, isn't it? And the lovely finishing touch is Yukari Fresh's chirpy vocals.
In the last few years, the term "earworm" has been gaining traction in the vernacular. Well, "Electric Ladyland" was my earworm. I had to itch that scratch so I decided to get the album it was on, FPM's "Luxury", the big man's 2nd album, released in September 1998. The album has both the English and Japanese versions of the song; the original Japanese version is at the very top while this one has the version with the cute English lyrics. And the anime tribute makes for a fine backdrop to this song.
As for information on Mr. Tanaka, the Wikipedia article can do this better than I can.
