Luxury

Fantastic Plastic Machine | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 27, 1999)
• Original Release Date: April 20, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Emperor Norton
• ASIN: B00000ID3L
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,508 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Theme of Luxury

2. There Must Be an Angel (Playing With My Heart) [Mix for Mirror Ball]

3. Honolulu, Calcutta

4. Electric Ladyland [English Version]

5. He Became a Beatnik

6. Bossa for Jackie

7. You Must Learn All Night Long

8. Lotto

9. Satellite Beats

10. I've Forgotten My Fagotto

11. The Girl Next Green Door

12. MPF [Mezzo Pianoforte]

13. Mr. Fantasy's Love

14. Electric Ladyland [Japanese Version][*]

15. Bossa for Jackie [Summer Review EP Version][*]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars equisitie taste of lounge, & an honest approach to retro-fun, May 16, 2000

By 

Richard Diaz - See all my reviews

This review is from: Luxury (Audio CD)

What is it about Japanese pop-tronica that makes it so irresistible? Although you'll figure out the formula halfway thourgh this album, it'll be with a smile on your face. Fantastic Plastic Machine (Tomoyuki Tanaka, Masaki Tsurugi) combine old 50's & 60's drum loops, an equisitie taste of lounge, and an honest approach to retro-fun (i.e. the opposite of smug artist Beck) into a cheery blend you'll want for after dinner parties or hip mix tapes. It's their fresh attitude that allows them to pull off a cover of "There Must be An Angel," complete with five-minute closing chorus (!). There's the wake-up entrance "Theme of Luxury," the French/American odd poetics of "Honolulu, Calcutta," and the goofy "Electric Lady Land." "You Must Learn All Night Long," is the real-old school breakbeat beach party number that sticks out as the best track.

It's by no means perfect, and you won't play it that often, but what the heck, I'm giving it a 5: when was the last time a CD made you smile?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars swingin', June 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Luxury (Audio CD)

ok, so it's kitsch and synthetic. Now that's been said for the umpteenth time can everybody just shut up and listen? "Luxury" refers to the bright and shiny, the disposable, the plastic, and the delights therein. It pops and crackles, but can just as easily bloom into something more substantial: the last track, Mr Fantasy's Love, begins as a squelchy, ticky-tack synth novelty, but by its end has transformed into an acapella string quartet that meshes the quaint with the heartfelt. The disco cover of Eurythmics' "There Must Be An Angel" is fabulously ethereal, and "Lotto" grabs you by your wide lapels and gives you a good shakedown. Fun music, and more conventionally melodic (and probably longer lasting) than much of Pizzicato Five.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ironic electronica = ironica?, May 13, 2005

By 

Ann Lewis (CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Luxury (Audio CD)

Fantastic Plastic Machine is the latest project of Japanese electronica wunderkind Tomoyuki Tanaka. In 'Luxury', Tanaka takes elements like 50s movie themes, children's tv show themes, elevator music, instructional audio, and reblends them against catchy beats, turning what was once mundane into something wonderful. Often the songs manage to be musically ironic, mocking the drama and triteness of pop music and advertising themes through the 20th century.

My favorite songs on the album are the unexpectedly perky Theme Of Luxury, the terribly catchy You Must Learn All Night long, and the thoroughly bizzarre and mesmerizing I've Forgotten My Fagotto.

Overall this is a fun and listenable album, great for at-work background music or dance music for a party. I'd love to see more albums like this one, and I'd love to see ironic electronica become its own genre.