Pizzicato Five - Happy End of the World

Check out Happy End of the World sound clips at
The Planet of Sound.

Mom often slapped me to stop the incessant chant about my urgent "fever for the flavor of a Pringle." Unaware of my offense, I would respond with an angry glare, fighting away the tears and the stinging sensation in my cheek. Realizing my shock, mom would ask me if I had even known that I was "singing that stupid song again." I hadn't. It was just one of many things I mumbled as I ran around the house like a maniac.

Years later, when my brother began saying Juicy Fruit was "gonna move ya," I understood my mother's frustration. It wasn't that she had been sick of hearing me sing, it was that I, like my brother, was trained like some dog to sing a commercial jingle better than I could the alphabet song.

Despite the child-rearing consequences, both Pringles and Juicy Fruit produced successful commercials. The tunes ingrained themselves in the subconscious and made you want to buy their products. I still sing that damn guitar intro when I fold that piece of gum into my mouth.

When I heard that Japanese popsters Pizzicato Five had done advertising tunes in their homeland, I became excited to hear them, since they offered the opportunity I needed as a child: an album of catchy jingles, á là Juicy Fruit, but with Japanese singing neutralizing the lyrics' stupidity. However, upon hearing Pizzicato Five's latest album, Happy End of the World, I began to wonder if kids in Japan have the same problem my brother and I had as children. Sure, Pizzicato Five have the inoffensive sweet female vocals, simple keyboard licks, and effeminate male vocals punctuating everything with some bop-bop love. But the album is devoid of hooks. There is no way that any four-year-old kid would hear this stuff and piss his mother off with its unceasing repetition. It's actually too bad that the album doesn't sound like 20 two-minute advertising ditties. Then I'd have the perfect present to give my little cousin for his birthday next month.

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