15 Facts about PERFUME

PERFUME have clocked up an impressive number of record releases and live performances since the group formed. So it’s natural that the outfit are going to accumulate all sorts of interesting stories, trivia and gossip.

With PERFUME due to make their live UK debut this week, just how much do you know about the J-Pop Trio?

Here’s 15 items of J-Pop trivia about Hiroshima’s finest….

Perfume took their name from the fact that the original members all had the Japanese character for ‘fragrance’ in their names.
The original third member of Perfume, Yuka Kawashima (aka Kawayuka), left the group prior to their debut. She was later part of another J-Pop outfit called Risky and also attempted a solo career under the name of Yuka.
At one of Perfume’s early public events, they performed a song titled ‘Juicy Fragrance’. This song has never been released because producer Nakata Yasutaka managed to loose the data for the track.
Before Perfume became well-known for their Technopop sound, the trio had released 2 independent singles in 2002 while still in Hiroshima. ‘Omajinai ☆ Perori’, which was produced by Pappala Kawai (Bakufuu Slump), and ‘Kareshi Boshuchu’. Perfume’s sound at the time was, to say the least, radically different…
Omajinai ☆ Perori is, naturally, perhaps the rarest Perfume release you can get your hands on.
Aa-chan’s younger sister Nishiwaki Sayaka, is a member of J-Pop outfit 9nine.
Perfume’s 2010 concert at Japan’s biggest venue, Tokyo Dome, saw them performing to 50,000 fans. They were only the second all-female outfit to perform at the prestigious venue, the first to do so were SPEED – a J-Pop outfit that the members of Perfume had been inspired by.
The 2011 album JPN debuted at No. 1 in the Oricon Weekly Album Chart, marking Perfume as only the second female Japanese group to achieve three consecutive number one albums. The original group to achieve this distinction was (again) SPEED.
‘Polyrhythm’ was the track that finally illustrated that Perfume had the potential for success. It was also chosen for inclusion in the soundtrack for Pixar’s animated film Cars 2 – which helped to raise Perfume’s global profile.
Former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman released his own version of ‘Polyrhythm’ on his 2009 album Tokyo Jukebox.
Perfume’s 2012 single ‘Spending all my Time’ was their first release to feature all English lyrics.
‘Spring of Life’ marked Perfume’s 20th single release and was their first release under the Universal label after transferring from the Tokuma Japan Communications label.
Perfume’s 2004 single release ‘Monochrome Effect’ made a later appearance on popular US cartoon series American Dad!. In the 2010 episode “May the Best Stan Win”, the song is referred to as “Japanese Funk from the future”.
As a tie-in with their 2013 release ‘Mirai no Museum’, which was used as the theme for a new Doraemon film, Perfume had a special website where users could create their own comics featuring the band members and their new single. On the website, users wrote their own lines into four panels of the comic. For the fifth panel, the computer automatically analyzed the data put into the text boxes to create the last scene, using real footage of the girls from the music video.
Perfume’s producer Nakata Yasutaka also works with many other Japanese artists and outfits, including the phenomenally successful Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.