Wait up a minute. Something has to be wrong. This is the band’s FIFTH album in the US, they’ve hosted their own weekly TV show, “Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-Puffy“, featuring guests like Lenny Kravitz, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, and rock band Garbage and they even have their very own animated cartoon show, ‘Hi Hi PuffyAmiYumi’ which sees these gorgeous, pop-savvy J-Girls join a top-rated animated gang that includes the Osmonds, the Jacksons and the Beatles. So why haven’t we heard of them in the UK? Well could be one of two things, really. Firstly, being the kind of cynical malcontents us Brits naturally are, we nurture a tendency to dismiss out of hand anything that can’t be justified by blood, sweat and tears or evidence of non-conventional weapons. Let’s face it, if Sadam Hussein had a led an assault that included a dozen or so puff-clouds of quirky candy pop then he might still be in power today, as us Brits would never have touched him, we just wouldn’t have been able to justify the time. The other reason is likely to be down to a mixture of economics and fashion. Try flogging Puffy’s well-worn tee-shirts and trademark ripped jeans down Camden Market this side of 1989? It’s the same reason Avril Lavigne has a more pliable market in the States; she’s more likely NOT be knocked off her skateboard and awarded an ASBO for a threatening and abusive vocal range than she is here in the UK. We’re just waaaaay too serious, you see. Puffy AmiYumi are the perfect embodiment of cheesy, disposable pop made all the more dubious by their ability to court as many styles and genres on one record than a session-player diagnosed with multiple personality syndrome. But what is really likely to be piss off the average Brit is the fact that it’s all ridiculously likeable. Whether you like the sugary retro pop of ‘Missing You Baby’, the punky, skaterboy thrill of ‘Nice Buddy’, the delirious new-wave of ‘Tokyo I’m On My Way’ or the spaced-out psychedelia of ‘Radio Tokyo’ or whether you simply want to have sex with them, they’re not the kind of girls to let you down.
Fathered and kept in check by former Jellyfish man, Andy Sturmer and featuring contributions from Butch Walker and John Spencer, ‘Splurge’ seems inspired by everything from The Monkees, the Ronettes, the Beatles to Abba, the Ramones and Black Sabbath – and throwing natural caution aside – I do have to say it works rather splendidly. Whether or not they’ve actually thieved many of these songs really depends on how much you value property.
Puffy AmiYumi; they’re Japanese, there’s two of them, they’re very very cute and they’ve got a stack of records that have sold billions. If you bought the Spongebob Squarepants movie soundtrack, it’s only proper you should buy this.