Home Read Classic Album Review: Takako Minekawa | Fun9

Classic Album Review: Takako Minekawa | Fun9

This Japanese electro-popster is more Cibo Matto than Pizzicato 5.

This came out in 2000 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):

 


First things first: No matter what your eyes tell you, this album is not pronounced Fun Nine — it’s Funk, according to the press bumpf.

Don’t sweat; I don’t get it either. What’s easier to grasp, however, is how Takako Minekawa has become the latest toast of the Japanese electro-pop world. It comes down to three words: Songwriting, songwriting, songwriting. While many of her contemporaries are obsessed with the zippy sugar rush of ’60s go-go, Minekawa draws upon a wider palette of influences — indie-pop, quirky funk, Close Encounters-style bleep-bloops, even the doo-de-doo backup vocals from Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side — to give her eclectic electronica extra layers of colour, shade and texture to bolster her airy, sing-songy vocals. In other words, she’s more Cibo Matto than Pizzicato 5. No matter how you write and/or pronounce it.