![]() Mamiko Sasaki (佐々木 麻美子 Sasaki Mamiko?) was one of the founding members and was the first vocalist of this group. He changed his name to 高浪敬太郎 (Keitarō Takanami) later, and was also known as "K-taro." Keitarō Takanami (高浪 慶太郎 Takanami Keitarō?, born in Nagasaki, Nagasaki) was one of the founding members, and he is a guitarist and a music producer now. Keitarō Takanami (1984–1994) - Guitar, keyboards and vocals. She is also a solo singer, a narrator, a fashion model and a dress designer now. Maki Nomiya (野宮 真貴 Nomiya Maki?, born Main Kushiro, Hokkaido) was the third vocalist of this group. Yasuharu Konishi (小西 康陽 Konishi Yasuharu?, born Februin Sapporo, Hokkaido) was the only founding member to stay with the group until the end. Yasuharu Konishi (1984–2001) - Songwriter, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, vocals. Miyata left the group almost immediately but the four remaining members kept the name Pizzicato Five. The group was formed in 1985 by Konishi and fellow founding bandmates Keitarō Takanami, Ryō Kamomiya, Mamiko Sasaki, and Shigeo Miyata. Pizzicato Five (1985-2001) was a Japanese pop group best known to audiences in the West in their later incarnation as a duo of Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi. Keitaro Takanami Combo & Orchestra Taco Pizza Five I also may have ripped off both the American school system and Robert Christgau for the scoring system.A.k.a. A page of solid Japanese language reviewsĪnd thank you to Jean Snow who delivered some hard-to-find EPs and provided spiritual guidance through the long process.Mark Wasiel’s defunct Pizzicato Five discography.Ted Mills song-by-song Pizzicato Five discography.I skipped “promo releases.” If there is something major I overlooked, feel free to pester me until I add it. I listened to every album that was not a greatest hits album rehashing old music, and I listened to every EP that was not just a single with a nearly identical remix. Fortunately I have been in a mood for what I call “systematic listening” (close listening to music catalogs of certain artists or genres in chronological order), and so I decided to listen to (basically) the entire Pizzicato Five discography and report back on my findings. Pizzicato Five invented a new methodology that yielded incredible results: laying bright new melodies on top of devalued and forgotten 1960s junk - Bacharach, film soundtracks, French Yé-Yé, Donovan - with drum samples and dance floor beats.Īnd this brings us back to the main barrier for Pizzicato Five fandom, whether new or old: the band’s prolificacy. On the other hand, they were the most consistent and driving force of the Shibuya-kei movement and pioneered a sound that no one outside of Japan ever replicated with the same skill. They were not a “serious” group in terms of content or timbre, they released too much material, and the quality went off a cliff at the very end. ![]() We can argue on quality, but P5 wins quantity hands down: There are more great P5 songs than there are Happy End or Flipper’s Guitar songs total.Īnd yet the band’s legacy is not a settled issue. One of the last P5 things I ever bought was called “In the Bag,” and it was literally a bag of Pizzicato Five records.īut now with some distance, I cannot think of a Japanese band who achieved more memorable and innovative songs than Pizzicato Five. Whether it was their long tenure, ubiquity, or the comically long discography, Pizzicato Five records felt like a commodity. ![]() When I started hunting for rare Shibuya-kei vinyl in 2000 across Japanese RECOfans and disk unions, there was rarely what I was looking for but there was always a giant stash of Pizzicato Five. When I started listening to Japanese music in the late 1990s, there was almost nothing available in the U.S. I always took Pizzicato Five for granted. Here are his thoughts over a five-part series. David Marx listened to every single major release from legendary Shibuya-kei band, Pizzicato Five, so you don’t have to. ![]()
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