Even though you may not recognize the name Tamio Okuda, you've probably heard his music. Okuda is the Svengali behind the extraordinarily successful female duo Puffy, and his love for and deep knowledge of '60s and '70s rock comes through loud and clear with every Beatles riff and classic chord pattern in Puffy's songs.

But at the same time Okuda has been piling up the cash thanks to his work as Puffy's main producer and songwriter, he's maintained his own career as a solo artist. His music is worlds away from the slick, preprocessed pap that plagues the J-pop charts. Instead, it's warm and full of human emotion -- fancy that! -- and has a sly, gently ironic sensibility that's refreshing.

Okuda first made a name for himself as a member of Unicorn, a five-man band that was one of Japan's top acts in the late '80s and early '90s. At that time, he was already gaining attention as a talented songwriter, though it was only after Unicorn broke up in 1993 that Okuda began to come into his own.