One of the first fruits was “Baby Love Child”, one of a few P5 songs that have brushed the fringes of public awareness over the years. Pizzicato Five were active from 1985 to 2001 but it wasn’t until 1991 that they really found their feet: that was the year that they changed labels, promoted former backing vocalist Maki Nomiya to frontwoman, and shifted away from Swing Out Sister-esque sophisti-pop to the dance-meets-retro style which they continued to explore for the next decade. And in case you’re wondering: yes, they did start out as a quintet, but that line-up didn’t last very long. This is the only song on this collection dating from P5’s time as a trio, featuring Keitarō Takanami on keyboards and guitar. This Year’s Girl #5 / Baby Love Child (from This Year’s Girl, 1991) Don’t get used to it, it’s going to be mostly Japanese from here on in… Having not played my CD single of this for years, another surprise was that it’s got an English language version on it, and that’s the one I’ve included here. This was was also P5’s only UK top 75 entry, which surprised me a bit as I don’t remember ever hearing it played anywhere, and there’s another song on this compilation which I could have sworn was a minor hit. I think it’s a good idea to start with the track that sounds most like a theme tune – in this case the theme to a retro action movie, the sort where the hero wears a leather jacket with a beige turtleneck sweater underneath. Introducing your dynamic duo: Maki Nomiya (vocals) and Yasuharu Konishi (keyboards, guitar and backing vocals). Mon Amour Tokyo (English-language single version – original appears on Happy End of the World, 1997) Which is pretty much the whole point, right? Side one That’s my excuse anyway! What I can say is that this is a selection of tracks I enjoy and I think other people might like too. “LOUDLAND!” and “Contact” are perhaps the wildest of the wildcard selections here, with “Happy Sad” and “The Night Is Still Young” the safest inclusions, but really there are so many ways you could go with a P5 compilation that even getting close to a definitive selection would be nigh-on impossible. I’m sure that another Pizzicato Five fan might come up with a completely different set of ten tracks, as might I on a different day. I have included one song which is also on Made In USA, but in a different version, so this imaginary compilation can be considered a sort of companion piece to that real one. Fortunately, with Pizzicato Five being so ridiculously prolific, there was plenty of material to choose from. Just to put the seal on it, Saint Etienne remixed P5 on several occasions, though with somewhat underwhelming results.īecause Made in USA was the album that tastemakers and TV and film editors picked up on the most, it became a “greatest hits” album by default, and it would be too easy for this Imaginary Compilation Album to turn into a slightly modified version of that collection. Saint Etienne fans will recognise a lot of the same traits in P5: the merging of sixties pop and nineties dance, the imagination and intelligence that undercuts their dalliances with kitsch, the (then) backroom duo + girl singer set-up (though one of the backroom boys left just as the group were starting to make waves internationally), and more regrettably, a fondness for releasing music in obscure formats that most fans don’t have a hope in hell of ever owning. Apart from the obvious language difference (Pizzicato Five perform mainly in Japanese – there, you’ve been warned!), the comparisons were not unwarranted. Back when Matador Records started repackaging Tokyo band Pizzicato Five‘s music for an international audience back in the mid 1990s, the alleged similarity between the two groups was quite strongly played up (at least in the UK press), and I think this must be the main reason I took a chance on the introductory compilation Made in USA. You have Saint Etienne to thank for this one. Alright, finally got this ICA finished! Only been sitting on it for about two years…
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