Cornelius - The First Question Award (1994)

Following the dissolution of Japanese pop duo sensation Flipper's Guitar in 1993, Keigo Oyamada decided to go solo. A virtual one man band, Keigo decided to release records under the moniker Cornelius as an homage to the memorable character from Planet of the Apes.

This first full-length is a breezy and melodic album, self-released on the now-defunct Trattoria label. It runs all over the place sound-wise, but is still enjoyably cohesive. It serves as a good transition from the shibuya-kei sound of Flipper's Guitar to the crazy genre mish-mash material that followed. It's that later material that turned Cornelius into a Japanese superstar. On top of that, Cornelius is a highly sought after remix artist, the results of which often turn a tune inside out, while branding it with a sound that is distinctly recognizable.

As a bonus, I've included three extra tracks from Cornelius' first release, 1993's Holidays in the Sun E.P. I found both of these a while back at bittorrent tracker JPOPSUKI. Two of the five tracks from the Holidays in the Sun E.P. also appear on The First Question Award. I replaced the first track with the higher bitrate encode, but didn't do so with "Raise Your Hand Together" because the E.P. version actually fades out 15 seconds sooner than the LP version!

Check out the music video for Cornelius' "Theme from First Question Award." This live clip with his touring band unfortunately doesn't give the best sense of what the album sounds like, but is still pretty cool:



Cornelius - The First Question Award (1994)
1. The Sun Is My Enemy (5:49)
2. (You Can't Always Get) What You Want (4:00)
3. Silent Snow Stream (6:32)
4. Perfect Rainbow (4:20)
5. Bad Moon Rising (5:28)
6. Cannabis (4:36)
7. Raise Your Hand Together (6:01)
8. The Back Door to Heaven (6:27)
9. Theme from First Question Award (1:11)
10. The Love Parade (3:33)
11. Moon Light Story (4:08)
From Holidays in the Sun E.P. CD5 (1993):
12. Raise Your Hand Together (320 Light Years Mix) (6:43)
13. Diamond Bossa (Featuring The Cornelius Swindle Sisters) (3:20)
14. The Sun Is My Enemy (Sunset Boo-goo-loo Mix) (5:28)

103.41MB RAR archive
MP3: (10x) Constant bitrate (192kbps)
iTunes 4.9 w/FhG &
(4x) Variable bitrate (259.6kbps average)
Exact Audio Copy w/LAME 3.96 (--preset fast extreme)

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