"GBI (German Bold Italic)" | ||||
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Single by Towa Tei featuring Kylie Minogue and Haruomi Hosono | ||||
from the album Sound Museum | ||||
Released | September 10, 1997 | |||
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Recorded | 1996 (Sangenjaya, Setagaya, Japan) | |||
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Towa Tei singles chronology | ||||
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Kylie Minogue singles chronology | ||||
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"GBI (German Bold Italic)" is a song by Japanese American music producer Towa Tei, featuring vocals from Australian singer Kylie Minogue, Japanese musician Haruomi Hosono, and co-written by Tei and Minogue. It is the lead single from Tei's second studio album, Sound Museum (1997), released by Arthrob in the United Kingdom. The song is a "minimalist" house-techno track with lyrics portrayed Minogue as a typeface called "German Bold Italic," with her vocals performed in a tongue-in-cheek style.
Many critics praises the song for its distinctiveness from Minogue's catalogue, with others notice the track as one of the important artistic moves that define her musical career. Commercially, the song was one of her least successful track on the charts. It peaked at number 50 in Australia and failed to reach top 50 in the United Kingdom with number 63. However, it was said to be a minor hit in Tei's home country, Japan.
The song's music video was directed by French director Stéphane Sednaoui and inspired by a mutual appreciation of Japanese culture between him and Minogue. It features scenes of Minogue dressing as a geisha throughout New York City streets.
The song was later added to Tei's first greatest hits album called Best (2001).
In 1996, coming back to a studio in Sangenjaya, Setagaya, Japan after going for drinks, Towa Tei received a hand-written fax that had "a picture of some sort" on it that said: "Music with you! Kylie. Call Me". She then came to perform in Japan and met Tei, they tried to make some songs for her album at Sangenjaya. The outputs from the session were "GBI (German Bold Italic)" and a demo of "Sometime Samurai".