Puffy AmiYumi is a pop/rock duo from Japan. I first heard them on the Japan For Sale Vol. 2 album back when I was a volunteer at a college radio station. I liked what I heard, so I made sure to give their next release (Nice.) a few spins when it arrived at the station. That one made me a fan, and eventually I bought my own copy.
The band is called Puffy in Japan, but when they started making inroads into the American music scene, they added on a combination of their own names so as not to be confused with the other Puffy. Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura were brought together in 1995 by talent agencies and currently they have an animated series on the Cartoon Network (Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi).
The commercialized nature of the band should make me not like them, much in the way I do not care for American Idol or the Backstreet Boys, but somehow this particular incarnation of the music industry's pre-fabricated band formula does not make me want to retch every time I hear it. Maybe the Japanese know how to do it better.
Listening to Puffy AmiYumi always puts me in a good mood. They never fail to deliver just the right mixture of the pop/rock formula that makes this child of the late 70s and 80s happy. Their latest album Splurge! continues with the Jpop/rock goodness.
The first song ("Call Me What You Like") is an open invitation to rock and roll fans to listen to the band because, as they put it,
Ooh ooh we ain't no country girls
Ooh ooh we ain't no urban girls (yeah!)
Ooh ooh we ain't no harujuku girls (b-a-n-a-n-a-s)
Ooh ooh we're just straight up rock 'n roll
I particularly like the call out poking fun at Gwen Stefani, although I would not call the music straight up rock and roll. Then again, maybe that is what I find so appealing about the band. On the surface it seems very pop, but the driving force behind each song is rock and roll drums and guitar.
They play around with genres. It is hard to peg them down as this or that. Pop/rock covers the generic, but on Splurge! they also flirt with elements of classic rock 'n roll ("Etude"), rockabilly surf ("Go Baby Power Now"), and even some Latin rock ("Mole").
Some of the songs on Splurge! are in English, but most of the album is in Japanese. I do not know any Japanese words, but that has not diminished my enjoyment. Maybe it is best that I do not understand the lyrics. The English songs tend to be sappy teen love tunes ("Tokyo I'm on my way – I'm going to be in love"). The teen image of Puffy AmiYumi is perpetuated in their presentation. I find it rather amusing since they are both in their early 30s. I suspect that youth sells in Japan much the way sex sells in America.
Article comments
1 - Aaron Fleming
Gotta love the eccentric J-Pop/rock, especially when fronted by two boisterous asian ladies. I may well check this out, good stuff.
2 - Mark Saleski
nice review. i went through a JPop phase for a while with Puffy AmiYumi and (though more arty), Cibo Matto.
3 - Anna Creech
Some corrections thanks to the folks over at the Tofu Records forum:
The "Teen Titans Theme" remix was done by just one member of the Polysics - not sure which one it is.
"Friends Forever" was written for the live action Scooby Doo Movie, Monster Unleashed, not for Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi.
Also, I've been told that the Japanese songs are more mature than what Puffy has done in the past. They seem to be shifting from teenybopper to adult. Their popularity in Japan is waining as a result, but as one member of the forums wrote, "Japan is pretty notorious for spitting out female artists as soon as they reach around the age of 25."
4 - Delysid
I've been bitten by the Puffy bug too. I downloaded about 5 tracks from different albums, and 4 out of 5 made it into my permanent collection. The girls sing beautifully together and give just the right emotional tone for each song, but much credit must also go to the song writing and arrangements, which I think are or were done by an Anglo male, either a Brit or an Amercian.
Or did I dream it?
Anyway, favourite Puffy song for me is "Planet Tokyo" in either English or Japanese.
5 - Anna Creech
Delysid: It's entirely possible that the songs were written by persons other than the band. My review copy was decidedly lacking in detail. According to what I've read from other sources, Dexter Holland of the Offspring wrote "Tokyo, I'm On My Way." Other songwriting credits/collaborations are Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion), Butch Walker, and Andy Strumer (Jellyfish).
6 - Connie Phillips
This article has been placed at the Advance.net websites, a site affiliated with about 12 newspapers.
One such site is here.
7 - Anna Creech
Thanks, Connie! I think this is one of my best music reviews so far. I lived it for a few weeks before getting it down on paper, as it were.
8 - Connie Phillips
It's a really great review, Anna!
9 - PiNkY
I absolutely love puffy amiyumi. according to my Spluge cd booklet, Ami wrote a song called Security blanket (which is one of my favorites) also, The Teen Titans theme was remixed by Hiroyuki Hayashi, who did an awesome song on that song. PUFFY as a band wrote a couple of the songs, Nice Buddy, missing you baby, The Story, and Beginnings. I hope this helps any, Puffy AmiYumi is so awesome in concert. I was litterally 3 feet away from them on their Philly concert for their Splurge! tour. It was so much fun.