True Madness Magazine

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Music Reviews
Puffy Ami Yumi, Nice
Bar None Records, 2003
By James Eddy

I debated writing this review for a few obvious reasons. First off, the majority of the album is in that fancy language that they speak in that magical land of islands, Japanese. This alone might turn off some listeners, the kinds who feel that the “meaning” of a song is the heart and soul and the music could be a guy farting on a snare drum for all they care as long as they can quote the lyrics and sound stoic and all around fucking awesome. Another interesting occurrence is that this is a pure pop record. Not rock-pop, or power-pop, just plain old pop. If you haven’t ever actually heard of Puffy AmiYumi, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’re not from Japan; they stand as one of the most popular groups over there, even with their own line of shoes and a short run variety TV show titled Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy. Half of understanding where the girls come from is to take in the fact that they are indeed cultural phenomena as much as a musical group. To separate the relationship would be wrong to do, and so don’t do it.

Now on to the album itself. The best way to explain the entire feel of Puffy AmiYumi’s most recent American release is schizophrenic. The pair of girls stretch their arms wide enough to encompass as many genres and directions of music as they can. The opening track, Planet Tokyo, gets off to a soaring start, only to be brought down to an almost disco vibe of following track Tokyo Nights. A few songs later, the gals seem to explore some elements of American Country-Western music with the galloping Thank You, probably my personal favorite track right now off the entire record. Your Love is a Drug is by far the most infectious track on the whole record (one of the few English lyrical compositions makes good, with some of the most quotable moments in all pop history,) while the team even skanks it out in the skatastic K2G. The album wraps it up with the one-two punch of the group’s theme song to Cartoon Networks Teen Titans, and a return to the Japanese version of Planet Tokyo called Red Swing. By the time it’s over, you might be confused, but all in all a very enjoyable ride. Again, when listening to the album remember that music can just be fun to listen to. It doesn’t have to be a deep, personal artistic statement. If you’re looking for that, stay far far away from the Puffy AmiYumi. They might be dangerous to your delicate assholeness.

RATING: 4 out of 5