Biography
The Shibuya-kei scene's originators, the Tokyo-based deconstructors of kitsch-pop known as Pizzicato Five, first coalesced in 1979 after university classmates Yasuharu Konishi and Keitaro Takanami connected during a campus music-society gathering. They decided to start a group and soon added another member from the same circle, Ryo Kamamiya, yet locating an appropriate singer proved difficult until Mamiko Sasaki joined in late 1984. Their inaugural release, the single "Audrey Hepburn Complex," appeared the next year, followed in 1986 by the debut album Pizzicato Five in Action. A string of further releases quickly placed the band among Japan's leading acts, even as personnel shifts continued; both Kamamiya and Sasaki departed in 1988, with Takao Tajima stepping in as vocalist before leaving himself the year after. From the 1990 single "Lovers Rock" onward, Maki Nomiya served as the new frontwoman, and domestic popularity kept climbing until the U.S. indie imprint Matador issued the 1994 compilation EP Five by Five. Takanami exited soon after that release, leaving the project a duo. Following two additional American anthologies, Made in USA and The Sound of Music by Pizzicato Five, the 1997 album Happy End of the World became the first to reach both Japanese and American markets simultaneously. Two years later came The International Playboy and Playgirl Record, while the final full-length project of the decade, Pizzicato Five (tm), surfaced in November 1999. Shortly into the new millennium, Konishi and Nomiya declared that the group would conclude with one last concert in Tokyo on March 31, 2001. Their catalog of widely praised recordings remained, along with the playful template for J-pop that countless Japanese acts have drawn upon ever since.
Albums
