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.[4]

Viva! La Woman
Studio album by
Cibo Matto
ReleasedJanuary 16, 1996 (1996-01-16)
Studio
Genre
Length48:12
LabelWarner Bros.
Producer
Cibo Matto chronology
Cibo Matto
(1995)		 Viva! La Woman
(1996)		 Super Relax
(1997)
Singles from Viva! La Woman
  1. "Birthday Cake"
    Released: 1995
  2. "Know Your Chicken"
    Released: 1995

The tracks "Birthday Cake" and "Know Your Chicken" were first released as singles in 1995.[5] Following the release of Viva! La Woman, the latter was reissued as a single in July 1996.[6] Music videos were produced for "Know Your Chicken" and "Sugar Water", directed by Evan Bernard and Michel Gondry, respectively.[7]

Background

Warner Bros. Records signed Cibo Matto after the band's 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 has expressed regret that she did not stand up for herself when others discouraged her from replacing the samples and loops with new recordings.[8]

Composition

Stereogum's James Rettig classifies Viva! La Woman as a trip hop album.[1] Throughout the album, vocalist Miho Hatori's alternately sung, rapped, and whispered performances are backed by Yuka Honda's hip hop-inspired sound collages.[9] 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.[2] In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, critic Rob Sheffield described the music as a mixture of hip hop, dub, lounge, and pop.[10]

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."[11]

"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.

Packaging

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.

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[13]
The Guardian[14]
Los Angeles Times[15]
Pitchfork9.1/10[16]
Rolling Stone[17]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[10]
Select4/5[18]
Spin9/10[19]

Viva! La Woman was acclaimed by music critics.[20] 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."[13] Select writer Andrew Male remarked on the album's playful lyrics, while noting that the band is "far more musically adept than yer average guitar 'n' shouting comedy act."[18] The Guardian's 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",[14] while AllMusic's Heather Phares praised it as "innovative and catchy" and "diverse and entertaining".[12] Spin named Viva! La Woman the tenth best album of 1996[21] and later ranked it as the 90th best album of the 1990s.[22] The album spent six weeks at number one on CMJ's college radio charts.[23] Some listeners perceived the album as a novelty, "partly because of the cutesy-pie assumptions attached to Asian women in pop and partly because of the band's propensity for writing songs about food", much to Cibo Matto's chagrin.[24]

Writing in The Quietus in 2014, Joe Sweeney regarded Viva! La Woman as "a food-obsessed avant-rap record that dared to be ridiculous at a time when full-throated earnestness... was shipping millions."[3]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Cibo Matto (Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda), except where noted.

No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Apple" 4:01
2."Beef Jerky" 2:28
3."Sugar Water"
4:29
4."White Pepper Ice Cream" 5:10
5."Birthday Cake" 3:15
6."Know Your Chicken" 4:21
7."Theme" 10:49
8."The Candy Man"
3:11
9."Le Pain Perdu" 3:29
10."Artichoke"
6:41
11."Jive" (hidden track) 0:18
Total length:48:12

Sample credits[25]

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[25]

(Where possible, the credits here have been adapted from humorous accreditations in the album's booklet, which are often made to sound sexual or food-related.)

Cibo Matto

Additional musicians

Production

Design

  • Lance Acord – basement photograph (on CD tray)
  • Dave Aron – back cover photograph
  • Miho Hatori – booklet illustrations
  • Garland Lyn – design assistance
  • Mike Mills – art direction, design
  • Thomas Thurnauer – cover illustration

Additional personnel

  • Tim Carr – A&R ("and street dancing")
  • Richard Grabel – "on point"
  • Grace Jean – management for Tortured Management
  • Simon B. – management for Tortured Management

References
  1. Rettig, James (February 3, 2014). "Stream Cibo Matto Hotel Valentine". Stereogum. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
  2. Norris, Chris (September 11, 1995). "CDs". New York. Vol. 28 no. 36. pp. 98–101. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  3. Sweeney, Joe (February 14, 2014). "Cibo Matto: Hotel Valentine". The Quietus. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
  4. "Just out". CMJ New Music Monthly. No. 29. January 1996. p. 53. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  5. Ankeny, Jason. "Cibo Matto". AllMusic. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  6. Strong, Martin C. (1999). "Cibo Matto". The Great Alternative & Indie Discography. Canongate Books. p. 140. ISBN 9-780862-419134.
  7. "News and Updates". Warner Bros. Records. Archived from the original on April 14, 1997. Retrieved December 10, 2020.
  8. Farinella, David John (October 1, 1999). "Cibo Matto: Beyond Stereotypes". Mix. Archived from the original on September 1, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  9. Pareles, Jon (January 28, 1996). "Cibo Matto: 'Viva! La Woman' Warner Brothers". The New York Times. Retrieved December 11, 2020.
  10. Sheffield, Rob (2004). "Cibo Matto". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 164. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  11. "Cibo Matto". Warner Bros. Records. Archived from the original on March 23, 2010. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  12. Phares, Heather. "Viva! La Woman – Cibo Matto". AllMusic. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  13. Romero, Michele (January 26, 1996). "Viva! La Woman". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  14. Sullivan, Caroline (March 29, 1996). "Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman (Warner Bros.)". The Guardian.
  15. Masuo, Sandy (February 11, 1996). "Cibo Matto, 'Viva La Woman,' Warner Bros". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 15, 2019.
  16. Schreiber, Ryan. "Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on February 17, 2009. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  17. Weisel, Al (February 8, 1996). "Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman!". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on January 7, 2002. Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  18. Male, Andrew (May 1996). "Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman". Select. No. 71.
  19. Huston, Johnny (February 1996). "Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman". Spin. Vol. 11 no. 11. p. 84. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
  20. Gardner, Elysa (May 5, 1996). "Cibo Matto's Food for Thought". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  21. Aaron, Charles (January 1997). "The 20 Best Albums of '96 – 10. Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman". Spin. Vol. 12 no. 10. p. 58. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  22. Sullivan, Kate (September 1999). "The 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s – 90. Cibo Matto: Viva! La Woman". Spin. Vol. 15 no. 9. p. 164. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  23. Freydkin, Donna (April 5, 1999). "Groundbreaking duo Cibo Matto return with 'Stereotype A'". CNN. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  24. Johnson, Martin (February 24, 2012). "Stereofab: With Metal, Pop, and Hip-Hop, Cibo Matto Smash Stereotypes and Rock the House". Barnes & Noble. Archived from the original on September 18, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  25. Viva! La Woman (liner notes). Cibo Matto. Warner Bros. Records. 1996. 9 45989-2.CS1 maint: others (link)
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