In his 1985 documentary "tokyo-Ga," director Wim Wenders encounters fellow German filmmaker Werner Herzog at the top of the Tokyo Tower. Japan has Herzog completely baffled. "Everything is cluttered up," he says, launching into a mad, rambling monologue about Tokyo that makes him sound like a guest on Sprockets. "There are hardly any images to be found."

Why doesn't Japan touch Herzog's monkey? It's not that there is a lack of images – it's that they are unrecognizable, having been completely drained of their original meanings. Japan is the ultimate postmodern culture, pushing appropriation and sampling to the limit. Rock purists will probably be just as perplexed by Japanese bands like Pizzicato Five, who borrow sounds from a variety of genres and liberate them from their original context.

Like faux exotic cocktail music of the '60s, The Sound of Music by Pizzicato Five pillages sounds from strange foreign cultures, in this case, us. Whether borrowing '70s soul riffs ("Happy Sad"), Partridge Family harmonies ("Groovy Is My Name") or creating a trip-hop version of "Revolution No. 9" ("Peace Music"), it's all rock & roll to them. Even the song "Rock & Roll" actually turns out to be a cheesy cha-cha. It's a slick, calculatedly disposable record that doesn't have the pretension of being anything but fun – or more than skin deep. Pizzicato Five subscribe to the old-time Top 40 radio belief that music genre doesn't matter as long as a song has a memorable melody and a foot-tapping beat. (RS 722)

AL WIESEL