Puffy AmiYumi's versatility and ability to continually surprise have given them a career longer than the average American pop idol or Japanese idoru, as they're called over there, and has allowed them to truly have a history, not just a catalogue. And that may have even surprised the members of Puffy AmiYumi themselves, who were strangers until the two were brought together by a record label and a management company.

In 1995, Tokyo-bred Ami Onuki and Osaka native Yumi Yoshimura had each learned about talent searches underway in Tokyo and decided to see how they might fare at them. Ami put together a demo for Sony, which had advertised for singers, and Yumi auditioned for a management company that was checking out a variety of performers, actors as well as musicians. After Ami sent her tape to the label, she was skeptical that anything would happen: "I just wanted to look at the rejection letter to see what they would put in the note to say sorry," she told a U.S. reporter. It turned out, however, that Ami, after being paired with Yumi, was just what they were looking for. Ami and Yumi meshed uncannily well as vocalists and they had a rapport that went beyond the merely professional; you could easily mistake the duo for siblings a la the Roches or Cowsills because of the way their voices blend. Performing in unison, they create a single, immediately identifiable sound that is very much their own.

Puffy AmiYumi differs from most high-concept pop combos of the last decade because their focus is as much on music as looks. Ami and Yumi became active collaborators in constructing exuberant, genre-defying songs, together with popular Japanese composer and producer Tamio Okuda, previously of the band Unicorn, and all-purpose American pop whiz Andy Sturmer, the former Jellyfish drummer. Ami and Yumi call Andy"the godfather of Puffy"; he christened them with their name, which, in Japan is simply "Puffy." Unfortunately, Ami and Yumi had to adjust things for America, where that other, tabloid-friendly guy had already laid claim to the moniker. (And then changed his own stage name to P. Diddy. Go figure.) As Yumi politely told Entertainment Weekly, "we respect the fact that Puff Daddy is Puffy in the U.S."

Puffy AmiYumi's 1996 debut single, "Asia No Junshin," was a million-selling smash in Japan and launched Puffy-mania there. Ami's and Yumi's predilection for well-worn tee-shirts and artfully ripped jeans became a much-copied style, and they were likely to be mobbed by fans if they set foot on Tokyo streets. Since then, they have sold 14 million records in Japan alone, hosted a television variety show (Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy), headlined arena-sized concerts, and inspired action-figure dolls and even a line of shoes. All of their singles has been licensed for high-profile commercials for such products as motor scooters, cosmetics, computers, and soft drinks. It might all seem crass if the music didn't tell a different, even subversive, story about alternative culture meeting the main-est of the mainstream. As L.A. Weekly critic Jay Babcock put it,"Puffy are a contemporary female version of the Monkees with the popularity of 'N Sync and the homage/theft approach of '90s pop-recombinant cult heroes the Pooh Sticks."

One generally doesn't find 'N Sync and the Pooh Sticks mentioned in the same sentence, but that's the way it is in the no-rules world of Puffy AmiYumi. When they released their first stateside LP, Spike, in 2001, through Sony Music International, American critics madly rummaged through their catalogue of comparisons, likening the duo to everyone from ABBA and ELO to the Cardigans and Stereolab. .And Ami and Yumi themselves underscored their eclecticism by offering up a surprising array of personal faves during intervews. They name-checked Agnostic Front, Stephen Malkmus, eels, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna, and U2, among others.

In keeping with the Puffy AmiYumi spirit, An Illustrated History has been assembled whimsically, not linearly. It starts off with what may be Puffy AmiYumi's most successful collaboration with Andy Sturmer to date, "Love So Pure," their first English language track, originally released in 2001 as a bonus cut on the American edition of Spike. The version of "Asia No Junshin (True Asia)" that follows is a never-before-released English rendition that is just as musically infectious - and as lyrically bewildering, in a good way - as the 1996 hit single. What follows from there is their unique take on J-pop, performed in their native tongue and taken from three albums, Spike, JET CD, and FEVER*FEVER CD, all bestsellers in Japan. The material from the latter two discs is being released domestically for the first time. The Captain Funk Puffy De Samba Mix of "Ai no Shirushi (Sign of Love)," a nod towards the Japanese passion for all sounds Brazilian, is taken from PRMX, a/k/a the Puffy Remix Project. They enlisted the services of such studio savants as Malcolm McLaren, Yasuharu Konishi of Pizzicato Five, and Plastic Fantastic Machine for an album that was a compendium of trendy beats, from house to funk to gleeful techno.

Integral to Puffy AmiYumi's profile in Japan are the cartoon images, featured in this package, of Rodney Alan Greenblat, who has created a suitable-for all-ages psychedelic style for the duo's album art. The New York City artist first built a following during the art boom of the early eighties, when fellow graffiti/cartoon-style painters Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf were also on everybody's hot list. Now he might be best known in the states for illustrating the popular Sony Playstation game, Parappa the Rapper. (Back in the day, Rodney also designed the artwork for one of Bar None's first releases, the debut disc of They Might Be Giants.) Rodney is an art superstar in Japan, where his work is featured in books, video games, galleries, and even at a surreal theme restaurant in the trendy Aoyama district of Tokyo. His child-like but hip sensibility suits Puffy; in turn, their anything-goes songs echo Rodney's own origins on the now-legendary pop scene of early-eighties Manhattan, in which both the fringe and mainstream worlds of art, music, and fashion collided in strange, surprising, and exciting ways.

Like Rodney, Puffy AmiYumi have created a kind of pop art that is mischievous, fun and marketable. The video for "Boogie Woogie No. 5," for example, is perhaps the most clever of the generally kooky clips they've made, with hip black and white photography and charmingly offhand dance moves. If it resembles a cooler version of a TV ad for a chain like the Gap or Target, that may be the point - Ami and Yumi have admitted to being influenced by that sort of kinetic commercial. And maybe that exemplifies best what An Illustrated History of PuffyAmiUmi is trying to.well, illustrate: Inspiration is everywhere.

 

- Michael Hill