Playboy & Playgirl begins with the kind of collage-heavy imagined soundtrack that marked Happy End of the World; with that out of the way, they get back to the inspired, eclectic popcraft that is their strength.
Hookier and more danceable than their previous album, this is a welcome return to songwriting for the dynamic duo.
Think Burt Bacharach without the self-pity, with a smidgen of Motown and Stax.
Keyboard timbres run the gamut of the Pizzicato imagination from faux-harpsichord to spacy funk.
Singer Nomiya Maki puts her unpretentious stamp over everything from Sgt.
Pepper's pomp to '60s R&B horns to symphonic dancefloor beats to introspective pastorals.
While P5 may be in with the lounge crowd, they never feel superior to their cheesy predecessors; avoiding the sometimes smug, reactionary irony of the new exotica, Yasuharu Konishi's diverse influences are held together by his all-embracing love of the pop spectrum.
A joyous record.
[Note: Playboy & Playgirl was released in Japan in 1998 under the title The International Playboy & Playgirl Record; Matador's 1999 American release cuts the third track, "International Pizzicato Five Mansion," and substitutes "La Règle du Jeu" later in the album's running order.].
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Playboy Playgirl | Pizzicato Five | Play | 04:23 | 10 MB | 32 MB |
| 2 | The International Playboy & Playgirl Beats | Pizzicato Five | Play | 04:29 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 3 | Playboy Playgirl (Instrumental) | Pizzicato Five | Play | 04:24 | 10 MB | 32 MB |
| 13 mins | 30 MB | |||||
| 13 mins | 96 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Takenaka Akihiko | Engineer, Mastering, Mixing |
| 2 | Bread & Butter | Featured Artist, Performer, Primary Artist |
| 3 | Grand-Prix | Featured Artist, Guest Artist |
| 4 | Kato Hisashi | Featured Artist, Performer, Primary Artist |
| 5 | Haruo Kubota | Horn Arrangements |
| 6 | Saito Makoto | Featured Artist, Guest Artist |
| 7 | Arichika Masumi | Featured Artist |
| 8 | Arichika Masumi | Primary Artist |
| 9 | Suzuki Momoko | Featured Artist |
| 10 | Suzuki Momoko | Performer, Primary Artist |
| 11 | Tatsuya Murayama | Composer |
| 12 | Hirose Osamu | Engineer, Mixing |
| 13 | Pizzicato Five | Primary Artist |
| 14 | Ikeda Satoshi | Featured Artist |
| 15 | Mitsuo Shindo | Art Direction |
| 16 | Satoh Tomonori | Executive Producer |
| 17 | Konishi Yasuharu | Producer, Recording Coordinator |
| 18 | Murata Yoichi | Guest Artist |
| 19 | Kato Yoshyuki | Recording Coordinator |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |