The First Wave Consolidates

Although a strict interpretation of the Shibuya-kei scene would start and end with Flipper’s Guitar, the words “Shibuya-kei” came to connote the stream of Japanese indiepop following in the original bands’ footsteps. The First Wave had been pioneers in introducing a whole panoply of new sounds to Japanese popular music: UK indie/alternative scenes like anorak pop, neo-acoustic, and Madchester (Flipper’s Guitar), hip hop (Scha Dara Parr), and ’60s softpop and club jazz (Pizzicato Five).

From ’89-’91, these bands had minimal interaction, but once FG was officially disbanded, they began a long history of crossover appearances. Oyamada Keigo produced Pizzicato Five’s 1993 album BOSSA NOVA 2001, which would codify the “Shibuya style” for the next decade as nostalgic borrowing from past sounds mixed with au courant dance beats. Meanwhile, Ozawa Kenji collaborated with SDP to create the 1994 mega-hit “Konya ha bugii bakku“.

The Second Wave

After the breakup, Ozawa and Oyamada took two completely different routes with their solo careers.

Oyamada renamed himself Cornelius and in 1993 put out his debut The First Question Award. The album recalled a friendly, mid-period FG, but took its greatest influence (and hooks) from the hipster rediscovery of Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends. More importantly, he started the sub-label Trattoria on Polystar to release unavailable Western titles in Japan (like Apples in Stereo and Free Design) and kick start the careers of young Japanese indie stars like Bridge (Kaji Hideki‘s original band), Citrus, Seagull Screaming, Kiss Her, Kiss Her, and many others. Oyamada also produced some of his then girlfriend Kahimi Karie‘s first work and repaid his debt to Salon Music by adding them to the Trattoria roster. Regardless of his plunge into the shallows of the underground, Oyamada was still a bone fide rockstar. In 1993, he could be seen in the inside cover of magazines doing ads for the Uno brand of hair mousse.

In stark contrast, Ozawa went straight-up J-Pop, scoring a string of big hits and even appearing on the ultra-conservative NHK New Years’ variety show Kouhaku Uta Gassen. Core Flipper’s fans followed Ozawa’s work devotionally, but he essentially left the indie world and no longer influenced the Japanese underground music scene. If FG was the Beatles, Ozawa was Wings.

A host of new bands also joined the informal movement in the mid-early ’90s: Venus Peter (discovered by Oyamada and produced by Salon Music’s Yoshida), Love Tambourines (on Takemi Kenji’s influential Crue-l label) , the rap-pop act Tokyo No. 1 Soulset (discovered by Oyamada), and Original Love (ex-Pizzicato Five vocalist Tajima Takao). Dee-lite’s Towa Tei came back to Japan from New York in the mid-’90s, and although he was regarded as a pioneer and antecedent to Shibuya-kei, the sound of his solo releases resembled the movement’s signature style enough to imply a loose membership. Denki Groove were more of a dance-humor-pop act, but there was great crossover between fans of Shibuya-kei and their work.

Cornelius’ second album — the heavy metal/hip hop-influenced 69/96 — was released in 1995 and is still his best selling record to date. Kahimi Karie scored some big hits on the Oricon charts like “Good Morning World” with the Scottish producer/songwriter Momus on board.

Shibuya-kei fashion had been strictly Continental dandy, but starting around 1995, Oyamada’s close relation to the fashion director Nigo and his brand A Bathing Ape brought the indie-fashion world of Ura-Harajuku into the indie music world of Shibuya-kei. Both men had supposedly stumbled upon an obsession with Planet of the Apes at the same exact moment in 1993 — collaboration was inevitable. Soon after meeting, Bape was making tour T-shirts for Cornelius, and until around 2002, Oyamada always dressed head-to-toe in the brand for official appearances.

The Third Wave

By the late ’90s, the Shibuya-kei bands had become so ubiquitous that the term no longer implied any sort of rebellious alternative to the mainstream. Their influence had permeated society, and massive big budget projects like the Puffy and My Little Lover were obviously taking notes from the indiepop playbook.

However, the term “Shibuya-kei” still served as a convenient way to describe the new acts working in a similar style. The German label Bungalow Records‘ massively well-received Japanese “clubpop” compilation Sushi 4004 directly codified the featured bands as “Shibuya-kei.”

New additions to the scene were Naka Masashi’s Escalator Records group: Yukari Fresh, Cubismo Grafico, Neil and Iraiza, and later, Naka’s own Losfeld. Also, Oh! Penelope — the reincarnation of ex-J-Rockers Shijin no Chi — put out one album of dead-on Shibuya-sound ’60s tributes (Milk&Cookies) and earned a tenuous place on the stage. Ex-Fancy Face Groovy Name and Ozawa girlfriend Minekawa Takako came aboard with her bedroom analog synth concoctions. Psych-out turntabling krautrockers Buffalo Daugher also were lumped in. Ex-Denki Groove’s Sunahara Yoshinori (aka Marin)’s amazing concept album Take Off and Landing took the Shibuya-kei sound into the air with an electronic tribute to Pan Am jetset culture.

Pizzicato Five’s Konishi Yasuharu meanwhile started his own label Readymade and released works by the lounge/dance DJs Tanaka Tomoyuki (Fantastic Plastic Machine), Ikeda Masanori (Mansfield), and latin beat fanatic Comoestas Yaegashi. The label even tried to construct a revisionist “Shibuya-kei” past through their Good Night Tokyo and Midnight Tokyo collections of groovy tracks from the ’60s.

Cornelius’s masterpiece Fantasma came out in 1997 and can be said to be the culmination of the scene’s sound. The album is a seamless trip through a well-curated collection of music-nerd influences — hip hop, turntabling, High Llamas, My Bloody Valentine, ’70s punk, the Music Machine, cartoon soundtracks, drum’n’bass, Primal Scream, the Beach Boys, sampling, Apples in Stereo, retro-futurism, Bach, Disneyland, the Jesus and Mary Chain, drugs, theremin, and Cornelius self-references.

By the end of the decade, the term “Shibuya-kei” had snowballed and snowballed to a point where it almost included any and all anti-mainstream sounds that fit a specific mukokuseki internationalist aesthetic. It was no longer a canonized musical style, but an attitude — a devotion to sophistication, a penchant for reference and pastiche, an anti-Jpop stance, and an unwavering attention to design and detail. However, as we’ll see in the next chapter, the rest of Japan also scooped up these trends, and the mainstream use of the Shibuya-kei ingredients softened the impact and meaning of the indie rebellion.

Continued in Part Four

Last time, we left our protagonists Oyamada Keigo and Ozawa Kenji of Flipper’s Guitar on the verge of their first record release.

The Primordial Flipper

On August 25, 1989, the five-piece Flipper’s Guitar released their first album Three Cheers for Our Side 海へ行くつもりじゃなかった (named after the Orange Juice song of the same name) on major-indie label Polystar. Ozawa — a student at top-ranking Tokyo University and nephew of world-famous conductor Ozawa Seiji — wrote the band’s English lyrics. The initial sound was straight-up “neo-acoustic” with not-so-subtle nods to anorak pop and UK schoolboy culture. While the subject matter generally ranged from adolescent concerns like wearing red shoes and drinking café au lait, the penultimate track “The Chime Will Ring” presented a grown-up realization that they were approaching the “end of youth.” The lyrics to the similarly-themed “Goodbye, our Pastels Badges” — about hanging up the accouterments of youth but never forgetting the feeling of being young — contain a laundry-list of references to influential bands: Boy Hairdressers, Aztec Camera, Haircut 100, The Monochrome Set, etc, etc. (Complete lyrics here.)

The album was a commercial flop.

And then Flipper’s Guitar went from five to two.

The story goes that Flipper’s manager at Polystar realized that the two charming boys fronting the band were a marketable power team and the other three members were just dead-weight. They were promptly kicked out of the band. (The alternate theory is that Ozawa was so difficult to work with, the other three quit.) Now a duo, Flipper’s became a vehicle for the Double Knockout Corporation songwriting team (a reference to the KO initials of the two lead members). They got their first big break when their English-language single “Friends Again” was used as part of the Shibuya chiimaa-idolizing film Octopus Army ~ Shibuya de aitai! in early 1990.

Polystar continued their repackage of the boys as pop idols, part of which was their sudden switch to Japanese lyrics. In May 1990, Flipper’s mania reached fevered pace when their new Italian film soundtrack-flavored single “Young Alive in Love (恋とマシンガン)” became the main theme song to the popular drama Youbikou Bugi (Cram-school Boogie).

Ozawa and Oyamada released album number two Camera Talk in June 1990. Their sound broadened out to include more sophisticated reference points beyond obscure UK indie bands: bossa nova/latin (“Summer Beauty 1990”), vocal jazz (“Southbound Excursion”), house music (“Big Bad Bingo”), and spy thriller instrumentals (“Cool Spy on a Hot Car”). References to British bands still made the cut (songs titled “Colour Field” and “Haircut 100”). Flipper’s also won the award for the most clumsy sampling ever for the intro to “Wild Wild Summer.”

Defined

Sometime before or after this period, the media discovered that Flipper’s Guitar, the rap group Scha Dara Parr, more senior lounge-rockers Pizzicato Five, Love Tambourines and a few other bands were making it on the Oricon charts simply by selling well at Shibuya’s mega-music stores HMV Shibuya, Tower Records, and Wave. The media thus christened the group of performers as “Shibuya-kei.” The musicians themselves never formally associated themselves as a movement nor even shared a common sound, but the label stuck. They had much in common though in terms of attitude, however — especially compared to the super-masculine “Band Boom” that had been entrancing Japan since 1988.

Contrary to myth, the term “Shibuya-kei” never had anything to do with Shibuya being a particularly stylish part of town. If anything, the rich Setagaya kids running around and reeking havoc on the neighborhood in their chiimaa turf wars had abandoned European-minded Harajuku designer fashion for a sloppy, casual “shibu-kaji” look.

If “Shibuya-kei” had a defining clothing style, it was vaguely French coastal — Saint James border shirts and berets. Hardcore “Shibuya-kei” fans were essentially upper middle-class high-school kids who were “anchi-meijaa” — anti-major label — and embraced Flipper’s sophisticated tastes as a sign of distinction from the masses.

This distinction was definitely clear on Flipper’s part. They did switch to singing Japanese and appear on musical variety shows, but they kept an incredibly hostile attitude towards the mainstream entertainment complex. They openly made fun of rival bands in interviews and made sarcastic inside jokes on radio and TV. In 1990, when they won the “Saiyushu New Artist Award,” they openly mocked the hosts’ blundering of their band name, Oyamada announced himself as “the drummer,” and then said “of course we won” when congratulated. (And lots of dialogue like this: “I can’t wait to tell my mother in the countryside.” / “Oh where are you from?” / “Tokyo.”) This may not seem particularly subversive in a global perspective, but even now, you are not likely to see this kind of banter in the world of over-managed J-Pop talent.

Flipper’s kept busy with a string of big singles, a widely-heard radio show called “Martians Go Home“, and a monthly column in the counterculture mag Takarajima. Much like Fujiwara Hiroshi, their mainstream popularity introduced the average Japanese person to a highly-obscure, well-curated world of “alternative” bands, movies, and brands.

A year after their hit album Camera Talk, Flipper’s changed directions again and put out the sample-crazy, psychedelic/Madchester-influenced Doctor Head’s World Tower 『ヘッド博士の世界塔』. The title is a reference to The Monkees 1968 film Head and samples from the movie’s dialogue are sprinkled throughout. The film’s theme — studio-created pop stars becoming self-aware and busting out of their shells into more “groovy” territory — obviously resonated with the two young stars. “Dolphin Song” is a direct reference to Head‘s opening “Porpoise Song” and a pastiche of The Beach Boys’ “Heroes and Villains”-type pop symphonies. “Aquamarine” is a knock-off of My Bloody Valentine’s “Lose My Breath.” Primal Scream’s Screamadelica was the other blueprint: “The Quizmaster” is just “Loaded” with Japanese lyrics and “Groove Tube” takes its verse melody from “Come Together.”

Goodbye, our Flipper’s Badges

Three months later, on October 29th, the media announced that Flipper’s Guitar had unexpectedly broken up. Tickets for the album tour had gone on sale, so the shows had to be canceled. Apparently, Ozawa and Oyamada were no longer talking during their their last publicity appearances. The “rumor” to emerge was that the two were fighting over the same girl — ex-Onyanko Club member Watanabe Marina. (Her love of the band had introduced the young music-geeks the J-Pop idol world of Myojo magazine). Imai Kentaro from neo-electro-pop band The Aprils — a Flipper’s expert — told me that this rumor was possibly just a cover story for the actual reason for their break-up: Playing the new sample-based material live was not sounding good at the rehearsals and these problems snowballed into ill-will between Ozawa and Oyamada.

By late 1991, Flipper’s Guitar was over, but the Shibuya-kei sound explosion had hardly begun. While never as big as Nirvana became in the U.S., Flipper’s were certainly the cultural equivalent: They opened the floodgates and indie culture poured into the mainstream.

Continued in Part Three