Well, You Know, It's Summer - polling Happy End's Kazemachi Roman (Haruomi Hosono's first major band, with Eiichi LONG VACATION Ohtaki, Shigeru PACIFIC Suzuki, and Takashi THE GOAT Matsumoto)

I think frogbs is the only other active ILM member who's into this album, but I do wonder what his favorite song on here is, so even if no one else votes, it won't have been a wasted effort!

For my own part, even in these latter days, in which Hosono has wrecked any possibility of me making an accurate ranking my favorite albums, my heart still insists that Kazemachi Roman is a "top ten". My favorite songwriter in the world, backed by my (present) favorite guitarist in the world, singing songs written by my favorite lyricist in the world (who doubles here as one of my favorite drummers in the world), with the chameleonic pre-Niagara (which is to say, not quite yet a mad genius) Eiichi Ohtaki helping keep everyone grounded and having fun (Typhoon is such a jam).

If not for another album Takashi Matsumoto wrote most of the lyrics for the following year (The Pirate Kid's Adventure -- but the seven Matsumoto songs on there have to share space with three by a far, far, far lesser lyricist, which is frustrating), I think this would be, lyrically, my single favorite album "of all time".

Not a wasted effort -- I'll be revisiting this album to vote! Easily a top-ten Hosono record.

Link to your lyrics translations for anyone interested.

Easily a top-ten Hosono record.

Yes! Preach! You rule, Kim.

Been listening to this on repeat and now checking out your translations properly I see that you also provide commentary on the songs -- very useful thanks!!

this is really difficult! lately "Haikara Hakuchi" has been my favorite...it's such a burst of energy, like suddenly you're listening to The Who? but I can't forget "Natsu Nan Desu", one of the prettiest songs I know..."Kurayamizaka Musasabi Henge" is another favorite on relisten..."Taifuu" rules...to say nothing of "Kaze Wo Atsumete"...though the sound palette on this album is pretty consistent, all the songs are very different from each other, which I think really makes this album great. I wish more people here knew about it, feel like its one of those albums where every song wound get at least one vote (well, every song longer than a minute at least).

curious what people here think of the remaster? it's really crisp and puncy, almost anachronistically so...maybe a touch loud but I think it works.

thanks for doing the translations, by the way! nice to (finally) know what some of these songs are actually about!

I dunno if it's a remaster I'm listening to (mp3s) but Hosono's bass seems really prominent throughout (in a good way!).

What year is your remaster, frogger?

You know I will always roll into these threads, give it a listen, and come back with some obscure influence on my own beloved obsession

mine is from 2017, though through some research I think its the same master as the 2014 boxset

main difference is the bass is noticeably louder in a way that you don't hear in 70s records. drums feel more crisp too but maybe I'm imagining that. idk, I like it better personally, but if you're used to the original it may be a bit of a shock

Ok then I must be listening to that remaster -- I was struck by how good this record is sounding.

Yeah, the bass is really prominent in the version on streaming media, which is good to hear what Hosono is adding.

But other than that, I'm kind of struggling with this album? Help me out, folks, what am I missing? Is it because folk-rock is just not my scene? Have my expectations been raised too high by YMO and the more synth oriented material that came later? It's not quite the disconnect of listening to an Organization record after falling in love with the Man Machine. But it's far from my favourite.

I guess maybe it was something that was brought up in NuNuNu's blog post here:

https://grainsparrow.blogspot.com/2024/07/translation-metamorphosis-of-kurayami.html

That a lot of this album is very nostalgic for the pre-Olympics old Tokyo that was recently lost when this album was recorded. When the Tokyo that I fell in love with was the neon cyberpunk motorcycle chases of bubble era band boom 80s Neo-Tokyo that Buck-Tick and Soft Ballet write about. But funnily enough, even that Tokyo is now falling away and being redeveloped. Imai Hisashi was complaining about the loss of the Roppongi Wave building where he discovered music, manga and literature when he moved to Tokyo in the 80s. Now gone, along with the drinking dens and bachelor pads where he hung out with X Japan - buried under the next wave of yuppie tower blocks in Roppongi's development. Tokyo, like any world metropolis, is a constant vortex of tearing down and putting up new layers. The layer of Tokyo that I have nostalgic-by-proxy for is not the layer that Happy End are exploring in this record. Give me shiny neon pop, and less gentle folk-rock I guess?

that was pretty much how I felt about the album when I first heard it but I came around in a pretty big way several years later. around the same time all of Hosono's stuff (which I previously hadn't really connected with) started to make sense to me.

I like this album, and their other albums, but I'm far from convinced it's the greatest Japanese album of time! Though I'm aware of its historical significance. Anyway I'll vote once I refresh my memory on each track.

I do keep hearing little homages throughout this album though. So the second track sounds like Buffalo Springfield's "Kind Woman", at least the pedal steel does, and there's another track that starts out like Moby Grape's "He".

Hosono *was* intentionally modelling the band after Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape. I love both those groups, but as seems to happen pretty often, some kind of transformation happened to this stuff as it crossed the Pacific (maybe it was simply falling into Hosono's hands that did the trick) and I love its Japanese reincarnation so much more.

Ether, that's a grand post, thank you! Yeah, I can totally get that... I don't know if I can add much about this record that I didn't already gush over in the translation commentaries. Part of it is the "supergroup before they were famous" aspect. I love each member so ridiculously much. Ohtaki was desperately, and mock-confidently, trying to fight his way out of Hosono's shadow. Hosono was role-playing James Taylor as a means of finding his own voice. Shigeru Suzuki was still in his short-lived "lead guitarist wunderkind" phase, eager to record the best guitar parts he could. And Matsumoto was in full and unexpected bloom as a young poet -- channeling all the angst and sweetness of the turning point between childhood and adulthood into words. And Ohtaki, Hosono, and Suzuki were all under his spell, competing with each other to give Matsumoto's words the most beautiful adornment they could give.

And for my own part, much as I may adore every version of YMO's sound (the electronic exotica, the goofy new wave, the dark "The Synths That Ate the Lab" stuff, the aidoru role-play, and the ambient pop... love 'em all) as well as everything about Miharuomi's European electro-cabaret, the gentle folk-rock of Kazemachi Roman, the second Happy End self-titled, and Hosono House is what fills the sails of my soul. No other genre makes me melt quite like this one does. And I've never heard it done better than here.

AND on top of that I'm such a lyrics guy.

Actually, I should rephrase my earlier answer. Specifically the bit about not 'getting' folk rock.

Because I do like quite a bit of folk rock. But a different folk tradition. See, if Hosono had been referencing Fairport Convention and Pentangle and Trees, I would get those references and be all over it. But Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape mean almost nothing to me. They're not the records that my parents and their friends played in the early 70s, so the references pass me by.

AND on top of that I'm such a lyrics guy.

― TheNuNuNu, Monday, October 13, 2025 10:01 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

again I gotta say thanks for all your translations, adds a new dimension to these tunes I hadn't known about. feel like you get to know 'em in a way you can't really get from their English language stuff.

Cosign on the lyrics and background in the blog being very helpful!

Unfortunately, I'm at that awful point of knowing just enough Japanese for it to be intrusive (can't listen to it as 'voice is just another instrument' - my brain keeps trying to extrapolate from the words I do know) but not enough for it to be lyrical and poetic

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Oh man, I missed voting! I think I would have gone for "Hana ichi monme" because that main guitar riff is so addictive.