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Viva! La Woman
Viva! La Woman is the debut studio album by the band Cibo Matto, released on January 16, 1996, by Warner Bros. Records.
The tracks "Birthday Cake" and "Know Your Chicken" were first released as singles in 1995. Following the release of Viva! La Woman, the latter was reissued as a single in July 1996. Music videos were produced for "Know Your Chicken" and "Sugar Water", directed by Evan Bernard and Michel Gondry, respectively.
Warner Bros. Records signed Cibo Matto after the band's 1995 self-titled EP caught the label's attention. The tracks on Viva! La Woman, Cibo Matto's first album for the label, reflected the band's live performances, utilizing pre-recorded samples and loops. Cibo Matto instrumentalist Yuka Honda later expressed regret that she did not stand up for herself when others discouraged her from replacing the samples and loops with new recordings.
Stereogum's James Rettig classified Viva! La Woman as a trip hop album. Throughout the album, vocalist Miho Hatori's alternately sung, rapped, and whispered performances are backed by Yuka Honda's hip hop-inspired sound collages. New York writer Chris Norris described Hatori and Honda as avant-pop musicians who on Viva! La Woman "weave found sounds, Muzak, and orchestral textures" into "atmospheric" songs. In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, critic Rob Sheffield described the music as a mixture of hip hop, dub, lounge, and pop.
The album's lyrics balance humorous themes in "Beef Jerky", "Birthday Cake", and "Know Your Chicken" with abstract, often emotional narrative-style wording in "Apple", "Sugar Water", and "Artichoke", as well as overall pop music fare in "White Pepper Ice Cream", "Theme", and "Le Pain Perdu". Several songs feature the group's well-known references to food, primarily present on this release. Honda explained: "Food is something you can't escape. It's there every day." The band would often go to restaurants after rehearsals, and according to Honda, "Cibo Matto grew out of those restaurant times."
"Theme", unusual among Cibo Matto's discography for its length, is a track which features a relatively normal song sung in English with several Italian words before shifting into instrumental passages and leading into a second half that contains entire verses in Japanese and French.
The album booklet contains illustrations and lyrics accompanying most of the songs. The only tracks for which the booklet features no lyrics are "The Candy Man", a cover of a song from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (presumably for copyright reasons; the song also has all lyrical references to Willy Wonka changed to "the candy man"), and "Jive", an 18-second hidden track primarily consisting of a recording of Miho Hatori tapping her thighs, for which she is also credited.
Viva! La Woman was acclaimed by music critics. Michele Romero of Entertainment Weekly described Cibo Matto as "sonic savants who go nutty mixing disparate ingredients, like avant-garde trumpet with bossa nova bass lines and sugary non-sequitur lyrics", summarizing the album as "kitschy club music, as kooky and lovable as Hello Kitty." In The Guardian, Caroline Sullivan called Viva! La Woman "an ambitious confection of trickling beats and delicately comatose spoken vocals whose only hint of wackiness is the lyrics". Select's Andrew Male observed that despite its playful lyrics, the band is "far more musically adept than yer average guitar 'n' shouting comedy act", while Q's Martin Aston highlighted Cibo Matto's eclectic range. AllMusic's Heather Phares found Viva! La Woman, "all trendiness aside", to be "innovative and catchy" and "diverse and entertaining". Sandy Masuo offered qualified praise in the Los Angeles Times, finding that "some of the protracted jams are a bit aimless, but the food theme binds things together"; less impressed was critic Robert Christgau, who gave the album a "neither" grade without comment.
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Viva! La Woman
Viva! La Woman is the debut studio album by the band Cibo Matto, released on January 16, 1996, by Warner Bros. Records.
The tracks "Birthday Cake" and "Know Your Chicken" were first released as singles in 1995. Following the release of Viva! La Woman, the latter was reissued as a single in July 1996. Music videos were produced for "Know Your Chicken" and "Sugar Water", directed by Evan Bernard and Michel Gondry, respectively.
Warner Bros. Records signed Cibo Matto after the band's 1995 self-titled EP caught the label's attention. The tracks on Viva! La Woman, Cibo Matto's first album for the label, reflected the band's live performances, utilizing pre-recorded samples and loops. Cibo Matto instrumentalist Yuka Honda later expressed regret that she did not stand up for herself when others discouraged her from replacing the samples and loops with new recordings.
Stereogum's James Rettig classified Viva! La Woman as a trip hop album. Throughout the album, vocalist Miho Hatori's alternately sung, rapped, and whispered performances are backed by Yuka Honda's hip hop-inspired sound collages. New York writer Chris Norris described Hatori and Honda as avant-pop musicians who on Viva! La Woman "weave found sounds, Muzak, and orchestral textures" into "atmospheric" songs. In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, critic Rob Sheffield described the music as a mixture of hip hop, dub, lounge, and pop.
The album's lyrics balance humorous themes in "Beef Jerky", "Birthday Cake", and "Know Your Chicken" with abstract, often emotional narrative-style wording in "Apple", "Sugar Water", and "Artichoke", as well as overall pop music fare in "White Pepper Ice Cream", "Theme", and "Le Pain Perdu". Several songs feature the group's well-known references to food, primarily present on this release. Honda explained: "Food is something you can't escape. It's there every day." The band would often go to restaurants after rehearsals, and according to Honda, "Cibo Matto grew out of those restaurant times."
"Theme", unusual among Cibo Matto's discography for its length, is a track which features a relatively normal song sung in English with several Italian words before shifting into instrumental passages and leading into a second half that contains entire verses in Japanese and French.
The album booklet contains illustrations and lyrics accompanying most of the songs. The only tracks for which the booklet features no lyrics are "The Candy Man", a cover of a song from the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (presumably for copyright reasons; the song also has all lyrical references to Willy Wonka changed to "the candy man"), and "Jive", an 18-second hidden track primarily consisting of a recording of Miho Hatori tapping her thighs, for which she is also credited.
Viva! La Woman was acclaimed by music critics. Michele Romero of Entertainment Weekly described Cibo Matto as "sonic savants who go nutty mixing disparate ingredients, like avant-garde trumpet with bossa nova bass lines and sugary non-sequitur lyrics", summarizing the album as "kitschy club music, as kooky and lovable as Hello Kitty." In The Guardian, Caroline Sullivan called Viva! La Woman "an ambitious confection of trickling beats and delicately comatose spoken vocals whose only hint of wackiness is the lyrics". Select's Andrew Male observed that despite its playful lyrics, the band is "far more musically adept than yer average guitar 'n' shouting comedy act", while Q's Martin Aston highlighted Cibo Matto's eclectic range. AllMusic's Heather Phares found Viva! La Woman, "all trendiness aside", to be "innovative and catchy" and "diverse and entertaining". Sandy Masuo offered qualified praise in the Los Angeles Times, finding that "some of the protracted jams are a bit aimless, but the food theme binds things together"; less impressed was critic Robert Christgau, who gave the album a "neither" grade without comment.