, also known by his moniker , is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the indie pop band Flipper's Guitar in 1988. Following their breakup in 1991, Oyamada pursued a solo career. He is regarded as one of the principal figures of the 1990s Shibuya-kei music and art scene.
Life and career 1980s–1990s Oyamada was born in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. His first claim to fame was as a member of the pop duo Flipper's Guitar, one of the key groups of the Tokyo Shibuya-kei scene. Following the disbandment of Flipper's Guitar in 1991, Oyamada donned the "Cornelius" moniker and embarked on a solo career. He commissioned a song, about himself, on Momus' 1999 album Stars Forever.
In 1997, he released the album Fantasma, which landed him praise from American music critics, who called him a "modern-day Brian Wilson" or the "Japanese Beck". In 2007, Rolling Stone Japan ranked Fantasma in 10th place amongst the "100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time".
In April 1999, he performed at The Bowlie Weekender, a music festival curated by Belle and Sebastian. Starting in August, he joined The International Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue, a tour organized by The Flaming Lips—also Bowlie participants—which featured artists including Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock, IQU, and Sonic Boom. That same year, he also performed at the Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, and Coachella festivals.
2000s–2010s
By September 2006, he was no longer signed to Matador Records.
In December 2008, Sensurround + B Sides was nominated for Best Surround Sound Album at the 2009 GRAMMY Awards.
In 2009, he began performing as a member of Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band. On the album Between My Head and the Sky, released in September of that year, he performed on guitar, bass, Tenori-on, programming, and percussion.
In 2010, he contributed the song "Katayanagi Twins vs. Sex Bob-Omb" to the film soundtrack of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
In 2011, he began the salyu × salyu project with Japanese singer Salyu, producing the album s(o)un(d)beams, released in April.
In 2013, he participated with Taku Satoh and Yugo Nakamura directing the music for the exhibition Design Ah! at 21 21 Design Sight in Tokyo.
In January 2016, METAFIVE—a band formed by Yukihiro Takahashi, Yoshinori Sunahara, Towa Tei, Tomohiko Gondo, Leo Imai, and Oyamada—released its first album, META.
In 2017, he produced the vinyl record Audio Check Track for checking audio equipment settings. That October, he also performed as a special guest at Beck’s live show at the Nippon Budokan.
In 2018, he performed three songs from his album Mellow Waves on NPR's “Tiny Desk Concert”. In the same year, he composed "Audio Architecture" for an exhibition of the same name held in Tokyo. The title of the exhibition was inspired by a phrase used by Sean Ono Lennon to describe Cornelius’s music.
In 2019, he released the digital single "Too Much Love for Sauna," written as the opening theme for Sado, a sauna-themed Japanese TV drama series. Later, a newly arranged version was released in 2024 and used as the opening theme for the sequel, under the title "Too Much Love for Sauna (Falling Deep)."
2020s–present
In 2020, he released a limited white vinyl LP—a collection of tracks originally written as background music for PARCO, a cultural complex in Shibuya. Rosalía shared a Met Gala–themed Vogue playlist in May, featuring her all-time favorite songs and including Cornelius’s “Typewrite Lesson.”
In 2021, he released “Forbidden Apple,” an instrumental track featuring the sound of biting an apple, written to showcase Sony’s 360 Reality Audio surround technology (and can also be heard in standard stereo). That same year, he contributed “Kora (Cornelius Remix)” to GoGo Penguin’s May release GGP/RMX.
In 2022, he performed Yellow Magic Orchestra’s “Cue” with Haruomi Hosono at a concert celebrating Yukihiro Takahashi’s 50th anniversary in music, and contributed a remodel of “Thatness and Thereness”, originally from Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 1980 album B-2 Unit, to A Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto – To the Moon and Back, released in November.
In 2023, he exhibited his installation works at “Ambient Kyoto 2023,” which showcased ambient-themed audiovisual art. In December, he co-curated a music playlist with Terry Riley for the BBC Radio program “Ambient Focus”.
In 2024, he held Cornelius 30th Anniversary shows in Japan and "Dream In Dream" World Tour 2024. At the Barbican Centre in London, Ichiko Aoba performed as a special guest. he also created the show music for KENZO Fall-Winter 2024 Runway Show by Nigo, presented at Paris Fashion Week in January. Later that year, Velludo—a neo-psychedelic band formed in the late 1980s around him and Shuntaro Okino—released its first album, Between The Lines. A television program commemorating the 30th anniversary of Cornelius's debut was also broadcast.
In January 2025, Ichiko Aoba brought him out as a special guest at her 15th anniversary concert in Kyoto. In March, he performed at co-headlining concerts with The Flaming Lips in Tokyo, and in October with Ryoji Ikeda in Osaka. The Japanese CD edition of Sparks’ May release MAD! included “Do Things My Own Way (Cornelius Remix)”. On October 7, Gwenno digitally released “Utopia (Cornelius Remix)”.
In May 2026, he performed at a co-headlining concert with Sparks in Tokyo.
Musical style
Cornelius was a pioneer of the Shibuya-kei style of music in Japan. The music of Cornelius could be described as experimental and exploratory, and often incorporates dissonant elements alongside more familiar harmonically "pleasing" sounds. He also incorporates sounds and samples from mass culture, pure electronic tones, and sounds from nature (such as on his Point album).
Trattoria Records Trattoria Records was a Japanese record company formed by Oyamada in 1993.Matador Records | Cornelius in Raygun (May 1998) and it was owned by Polystar, a group of independent record labels.The Pop Life; Eclecticism Personified - New York Times The label went defunct in 2002, and most of their artists went to the Felicity label.
Roster Apples in Stereo Asa-Chang & Junray Bridge Citrus Corduroy Cornelius Hanatarash Hideki Kaji Hiromix Kahimi Karie Takako Minekawa OOIOO Papas Fritas Louis Philippe Salon Music Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her Vodka Collins Wack Wack Rhythm Band Would-be-goods Bill Wyman - Reissue
Personal life Oyamada married musician and collaborator Takako Minekawa in 2000 and they have one child, Milo, named after the son of Cornelius in Planet of the Apes. They divorced in 2012. Since 2020, he has been in a long term relationship with Minami Yamaguchi, the owner of a fashion shop in Setagaya, Tokyo. He is a second cousin of Joi Ito and Miki Berenyi, the latter who appears on the song "The Spell of a Vanishing Loveliness" from Mellow Waves.
Bullying controversy In a 1995 interview for Quick Japan, Oyamada said he was involved with a group of bullies who had locked a disabled student in a vaulting box and recounted several episodes reflecting his friendship with him, which lasted from elementary through high school. The interview reported that he did not commit additional acts of bullying, but witnessed them. In the same article, the disabled student was solicited for comment and referred to Oyamada as a friend.
On July 14, 2021, the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (TOCOG) announced that Oyamada would be a composer of the 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. Following this, a post containing false excerpts from the original interviews was circulated by an anti-Olympics account on Twitter, triggering a social media backlash. Two days later, Oyamada tweeted an apologizing for his "thoughtless remarks and actions" against other students during his youth and was deserving of criticism, although the articles had contained exaggerations and mistakes, such as a claim that he had forced a student to masturbate. Toshirō Mutō, the chief executive of the Organising Committee, said he wanted Oyamada to remain. On July 19, four days before the ceremony, Oyamada decided to leave the creative team for the Tokyo Olympics on his own terms. A television program he had scored was removed from broadcasting.
In September, Shūkan Bunshun published a more detailed statement drawn from a two-hour interview with Oyamada, in which he explained that some of the claims had originated from the false excerpts that circulated. In 2023 and 2024, two major publishers in Japan released books about the controversy. One of the books argues that a distorted image of him, shaped in the 2000s on 2channel, an anonymous Japanese message board, and later on a blog, led to an infodemic spread by the mainstream media. Another author, after having interviewed several of Oyamada’s former classmates, states that he was unable to confirm facts as reported in media coverage.
Discography
The discography of Cornelius consists of eight studio albums, three soundtracks, twelve remix and compilation albums, three extended plays, thirty one singles and seven video albums.
Studio albums Year InformationChart positionsJPNUKUS Elec.US Indie 1994 The First Question Award Labels: Trattoria Records, Polystar Released: February 25, 1994 4 — — — 1995 69/96 Labels: Trattoria, Polystar Released: June 9, 1995 3 — — — 1997 Fantasma Labels: Trattoria, Polystar, Matador, Lefse Records Released: August 6, 1997 6 — — — 2001 Point Labels: Trattoria, Polystar, Matador Released: October 24, 2001 4 124 17 47 2006 Sensuous Labels: Warner Music Japan, Everloving Released: October 25, 2006 8 — 18 — 2017 Mellow Waves Labels: Warner Music Japan, Rostrum Released: June 28, 2017 10 — 10 — 2023 Dream in Dream Labels: Warner Music Japan, Like Released: June 28, 2023 7 — — — 2026 Refractions Labels: Warner Music Japan, Eat Your Own Ears Released: August 19, 2026 15 — — —
Soundtracks Design Ah! (Warner Music Japan; January 23, 2013) – JP No. 33 Ghost in the Shell: Arise (Flying Dog; november 27, 2013) The Cat That Lived a Million Times (Warner Music Japan; October 31, 2013) (EP) Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie O.S.T. (Flying Dog; June 15, 2015) Design Ah! 2 (Warner Music Japan; March 21, 2018) Design Ah! 3 (Warner Music Japan; July 18, 2018)
Remix and compilation albums Year InformationJP chart Notes 1996 96/69 Labels: Trattoria, Polystar Released: June 9, 1996 6 Remix LP of 69/96 1998 FM – Fantasma Remixes Released: November 26, 1998 Labels: Trattoria, Polystar, Matador 39 Various artists' remixes of Fantasma Mixes by Money Mark, the High Llamas, Buffalo Daughter, the Pastels, Yasuharu Konishi (Japan only), Damon Albarn, Unkle, Coldcut CM – Cornelius Remixes Labels: Trattoria, Polystar, Matador Released: November 26, 1998 40 Cornelius' remixes of artists contributing to FM Mixes of Unkle, Money Mark, Buffalo Daughter, Coldcut, the Pastels, the High Llamas, Salon Music (not on Japan edition) 2003 CM2 – Interpretation by Cornelius Labels: Warner Music Japan Released: June 25, 2003 29 Cornelius remix collection Mixes of Blur, k.d. lang, Beck, Gerling, the Avalanches, Moby, Manic Street Preachers, Sting, Tahiti 80 and more 2004 PM by Humans Labels: Matador Released: January 20, 2004 87 Various artists' remixes of Point. Released together with the 5.1 DVD-Audio of Point as Five Point One + PM by Humans 2009 CM3 – Interpretation Remixed by Cornelius Labels: Warner Music Japan Released: May 13, 2009 32 Cornelius remix collection Mixes of Kings of Convenience, Bloc Party, the Go! Team, James Brown, Sting, Ryuichi Sakamoto and more 2012 CM4 Labels: Warner Music Japan Released: September 5, 2012 53 Cornelius remix collection Mixes Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band, Beastie Boys, MGMT, Arto Lindsay, Lali Puna, Haruo Minami, Tomoyasu Hotei, Maia Hirasawa and more 2015 Constellations of Music Labels: Warner Music Japan Released: August 19, 2015 30 Collaboration and remix album with various artists