Episode 4: Exploring Hosono House by Haruomi Hosono

In this episode of Home Records, we’re diving into Hosono House by Haruomi Hosono—our first Japanese record on the show, and part one of a two-part series.

We actually found this record on our honeymoon in Osaka, after searching all over Japan trying to track it down. In this episode, we’re sharing that story—what it took to find it, why it mattered so much to us, and how it became part of our collection.

We also get into the sound and legacy of Hosono House, and why it’s such an important record not just in Japanese music, but in shaping artists around the world. From production details to personal memories, this one is part music history, part travel story, and completely a snapshot of our life right now.

Whether you’ve loved this album for years or you’re hearing it for the first time, we’re so glad you’re here listening with us. 

Follow Home Records and subscribe wherever you listen.
Find us at @emilymyersmusic and @theslicemusic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Hi, I'm Slice.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

And I'm Emily.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

And welcome to Home Records, the podcast where we, two married musicians, pick an album at random from our 2000 piece vinyl collection and discuss its personal and cultural importance. How are you doing today, Em?

SPEAKER_02 0:32

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_03 0:33

I'm doing pretty good. I cannot complain. I cannot complain. Um, so it's it's been a minute uh since we've uh recorded an episode, and there's there's kind of a couple of reasons for that.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Yeah, we've been on the road.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Well, we've been busy. We've been seeing family. Uh we went to LA last weekend to see um see my family, and uh Em's been doing some gigs as well some weekends.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Yeah, I've been kind of all over the Midwest doing some gigs.

SPEAKER_03 1:02

Yeah, out of town, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Yep, doing some house shows, which is my favorite kind of show. Bringing concerts to people's backyards, which is really it's a really unique show if you've never seen a house show.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Yeah, so so that's that's part of the reason. The other part is that today's episode is is quite uh quite unique compared, I think, not only compared to the episodes we've done before, but probably some episodes we'll do later on, uh more to come, because we uh uh we got married last year in October.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Our one year's coming up. It is coming up. Can you believe it?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Yes, as of as of this recording. By the time it's out, it probably would be already our our uh year anniversary. But uh for our honeymoon, we went to Japan and we we went there for a couple weeks and it was absolutely fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Yeah, and for those of you who said, why Japan? I have wanted to go to Japan since literally I was a kid. My mom went when she was in college, and she always had like a box of like Japanese souvenirs she brought with her when she came home. So I grew up with this idea of going to Japan because my mom just talked about it so fondly. And when we were getting married, I looked at him and I said, For Animan, do you want to go to Japan? And he just said yes. Like easiest decision of our entire wedding planning process.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Well, and and for both of us, you know, we had both grown up going to uh, you know, traveling to different places like in Europe and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

And so Well, we both lived in uh different parts of Europe.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

At at a time, yeah, because you lived in Ireland and I lived in the UK, not exactly the same time, but for for quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Yeah, I always think that shocks people. I didn't live there as long as you did. I I lived in Dublin for just a summer, wanted to stay longer, but you know, had to like finish my college degree.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

Yeah, I was at the but you were there for was it two years or three years? I was at two years. I was in the UK for two years. Um, so and that was fantastic as well. I was doing two master's degrees there, not at the same time, but um one for one year, another for another year, both in music. Um but yeah, Japan was definitely um kind of a choice, I think. It's like, oh, we've never been there.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

And I I've actually no had a lot of friends that have visited Japan recently too before uh we did, so it just Yeah, it was like once we said we were going to Japan, it was like all these people had apparently gone, and like we had no idea.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

And we and we got some some good uh recommendations and tips. Um funnily enough, actually, my best man in my wedding, he went to Japan right after our wedding. So, you know, so so it was kind of par for the course, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Um Yeah, it was meant to be.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

And we're gonna talk about you know things that went on as as we progress in this episode because this episode is actually gonna focus not on not on one, but two records from uh related Japanese artists. And uh these were artists that um well at least one of them I was aware of uh before coming to Japan because uh one of the things that I did anyway was uh go to some record shops in uh in the different cities we visited. We visited Tokyo, Kyoto, um uh uh Osaka and Hiroshima. And I went to the uh the big Tower Records uh 10 it's a 10-story tower records in Shibuya in the middle of Tokyo.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Yeah, and I didn't know the history of Tower Records. So first off, before we the reason why we're talking about Japan is because we're talking about a a record that was done by the Japanese artists.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Yeah, two two two artists, and um, and um and one of them which I was aware of before, uh an a band called Yellow Magic Orchestra, um, or YMO, and uh one of its respective members, Harumi Hosono, who was a solo artist before uh joining YMO. So we're gonna talk about Hosono, the Harumi Hosono record Hosono house first.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

That's gonna be part one today's episode.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

That's gonna be part one because there's a lot to talk about. Um, and I will definitely have a lot of things to talk about in terms of sort of the lineage and history of of these uh of of Hosono and YMO. And you know, I'll try not to uh deviate too much because it it is at least worth mentioning the other members because they uh uh did a lot of interesting things too around the same time Hosono did and after, but um yeah, the YMO record we're talking about is Solid State Survivor, which was their second record, and that'll be part two.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yeah. And so the reason why we're talking about Japan and our trip to Japan is because we actually found the record while we were there. Yeah. And the first place we looked was Tower Records. And can you tell people the history of Tower Records? Because I did not know, and I had never been to one.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

So Tower Records had been around was around the States. It was like sort of the premier, like the prime record shop. That was the prime franchise record shop that everyone went to to buy the latest records, the latest pop records, etc. So, and and tower records actually went out of business in the States back in the 2000s. I actually and I've been to Tower Records, I've been to the one in uh in um in Santa Monica and the one in Hollywood. So I had I grew up I grew up going there before uh and this was like before Amoeba Records was a thing, really.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Right. And what happened in the 2000s, that's when all the digital music came out. That was where that all started.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Well, digital music and and uh file sharing. So piracy. Yep. So that's and that really kind of did a number, I think, like because that went under Sam Goody went under as well. So it was just this whole chain effect that affected uh these uh franchise shops immensely.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Um and so when people like and that was what caused Spotify to happen.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

So I'm just eventually, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Eventually, like just so people understand, like in the 2000s, that's what started to happen is music became something digital that people could share, and people realized they didn't have to go to a store to buy music anymore. And so that is where like Tower Records went under, a bunch of record stores went under because you didn't need to go out and buy the physical product anymore. And then Spotify happened as kind of a solution to this bleeding arm happening into the music industry, yeah, and that has led to where we're at today, and we really haven't ever fixed the problem entirely. Um, but just just so people like understand that history and tower records is the kind of the big icon of that that going down in the states. And what's fascinating, this is what I loved about visiting Tower Records in Japan, that never happened in Japan, really.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Like Japan is a very physical album place, especially CDs, like CDs, like there for when I was growing up, there were there were certain albums from certain artists that I uh that I scoured even Tower Records, which would occasionally have them or Amoeba records, but it was very hard to find them like individual albums on CD on his own. But if you go to Japan, I'm talking about American artists too, or just any you know pop artists from from whatever era, you go to Japan, you can find those super easy in the CD section.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Ironically, we didn't we didn't even go in the CD section because that would have probably been uh another field day, and I was just looking at vinyl anyway.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Yeah. Well, yeah, and so like as you were saying, Tower Records is 10 stories.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Yeah, the the specifically the one in Shibuya and every Which is in Tokyo. In Tokyo, and every and every floor is dedicated to a specific thing. So one floor is all K pop CDs, another floor is all J Pop CDs, another floor is like them combined on vinyl. There's a floor that has a venue and meet and greet area, and then when you get to the top, you get to like the you know, the Western pop CDs and then the vinyl. And so I hadn't known about Yellow Magic Orchestra going in, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

So the one thing I was gonna say about Tower Records is the K-pop and J pop. If you're wondering why Japan is so interested in physical copies, it really comes down to the K-pop and J pop scene. So if you go and look you look at their floors, they have posters, they have different variants, they have all these different kind of it's almost like baseball cards where you can collect each character, and that is so it's so fun. Like it's really, really fun, and that's why K-pop and J-pop is really exploding in the States because it's so fun. Um, but you really saw that firsthand in Tower Records.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Uh in the States you can find like sort of uh that kind of thing, sort of in Target, because they sell a lot of K-pop artist music in Target, and you can find some variants in that, but yeah, if you go to the one in uh to the any record shop like Tower Records in uh Japan, then it's just all yeah, it's just all over there.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

And so that's really why the physical sales are still very viable in Japan. So um that's why we were able to do a lot of record shopping while we were there.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Yeah, and so when I was there, I was I was primarily interested in uh finding uh Yellow Magic Orchestra vinyl and records from the respective uh members of the band. And so I was saying survivors kind of considered their classic record. Again, we'll talk about that more in uh part two, but I I had found all the YMO records I wanted, and the three members of YMO, Harumi Hosono being one of them, and then the other two members, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, and I found some of their albums, but I could not for the life of me find a Harumi Hosono record. They yeah the closest they had was um so the album we're talking about Hosono House, he actually re-recorded that album into kind of a more modern version called Hochono House that came out a few years ago, and they had that, but I didn't buy that, but I did buy um there was a compilation where various artists actually recorded their own versions of the songs from Hosono House, and I did get that.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

That's I ended up finding that, but uh no dice on Hosono House, and which is so funny because again, as I've said three times, it was a 10-story record shop and it didn't have the record he was looking for. And there was even like a whole section that was Yellow Magic Orchestra, there was a whole wall just dedicated to them, um, but it didn't have this record.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

It didn't have this one record for whatever reason, and this is arguably probably the most famous record out of uh uh outside of the YMO discography from its respective members.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

And the other thing, so anyway, so this is what he's setting up is the started a very long uh goose hunt around Japan to find this record. Yes. And one of the reasons why it was so important to find this record while we are in Japan is because of the imports. Can you explain that a little bit?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Well, well, it's you know, these are these are Japanese artists, and so unless you go to a record shop that has like a specific import section for records dedicated, you know, coming from Asia, let alone Japan, then you'll be hard pressed to find it. With that said, um, ironically, if you go into some record shops in the States, they actually usually put YMO in the pop rock section.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Which I can hear. I I understand that.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yeah, they put them there instead of the imports uh section. But um, yeah, but for some reason this record of Sona House was very scarce. We I visited a couple other shops in Tokyo, no dice, one in Kyoto, no dice. And so then we got to Osaka and it was really cool. I went into one record shop and I asked them if they had it. They said they didn't, but said there's other record shops. He gave me this pamphlet with a map on the back that showed the seven-block district of all record shops.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

It was a map of record shops, and we'll we'll share that on social media because it was so fun.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Yeah, it was it was absolutely fantastic. So, so we went into some of these different record shops, and man, we were still having a hard time. I was still having a hard time, could not for life me find it until we went into this building.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Um like an office building.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Yeah, it went to this building that had three record shops on the same floor. I went to one with the first one, I said, Do you have it? And they're like, No, yeah, jazz and blues, but go next door, they probably had it. So I go into the next the next one, uh right across the way, and I asked the guy, and this guy behind the counter, you know, he's uh he was a tall, you know, uh bigger Japanese guy with a ponytail. He kind of kind of reminded me of like the comic book guy from The Simpsons. And so um I asked him, you know, Harumi Sono, and so you know, he got he comes out and I don't know how they organized the records exactly. So and and what I mean like a comic book guy, I mean like he's flipping through records like he's like a dude flips through comic books. It's it's it's it was wild. Um but anyways, so lo and behold, they had a copy, a new copy of the reissue of Hosona House, which I'm uh I'm I'm holding right here up close to the mic so you can see it. Um and um You can hear its presence. It was a fifth 50th anniversary edition. Um I don't know who put this out because it's like I can't tell, because they did a reissue of this in the States years ago, but I don't think that's what this is. So I was so happy to finally find this freaking record.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

Um you should have seen his face. It was like, what's that saying? Like someone wins like the prize hog, that's a Midwest thing. And he looks so proud. He was so happy.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

No, I swear, I you know, coming to Japan, I didn't expect this particular record to be the White Whale because I know because it is very influential, actually, yeah, even for American artists, which we'll get into. Um one other note I will make is that they also had their an original copy of Osono's second album, Tropical Dandy, which is actually my favorite Hosono record, and it was like an original copy, and it was like 150 bucks, and I'm like, I've already bought a bunch of these other records, so I it was good that I held off on that one though, because they're actually reissuing that album um in September. So this is actually a good crossover too. Uh talking about Hosono.

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Um well and okay, so how many record shops did we visit before you found it?

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Uh in gen uh overall or in Osaka?

SPEAKER_02 14:59

No, overall.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Overall, uh I would probably say uh it was uh no, well, it was it was like five or six, I think. It was five or six in total.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah, it we it was real I'm trying to just stress it was really hard to find. And I want to mention just briefly, um one of the reasons for that is just the Japanese market, and this is true of a lot of foreign markets. I don't think people realize like until they go travel, like how much like American music is a primary export. We export more American music than we get in. And it in Japan, and I would say this is true of like this was true in Dublin when I worked in the music industry in Dublin too. Um but especially in Japan, there is a fascination and love for American rock and roll. And so we went into obviously this is not true of TA records, but it's kind of like people want either American rock and roll or they want K pop or J-pop. Like those are the two big things that are happening.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

And and jazz, and jazz, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

And jazz, yeah, they love jazz in uh in Japan, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah, and so like Hosono is really, in my opinion, listening to this record, and we'll get more into this in a minute, is a rock and roll artist, but he's a Japanese rock and roll artist. And so it in a weird way, it wasn't as easy to find because we would walk into some record stores and it and it was an American rock and roll record store. It really was, like you would not find a lot of Japanese artists in that record store, which is really interesting, and like what you were saying about like you walked into a record store and it was just blues and jazz.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Um, and I think that's something that like um if if you haven't uh you know, like like I worked in the music industry in a different country, and that was something that was so strange to me, is like to hear so much American music in Dublin and to hear so much American music in Japan and just to see how important that is to the culture, I don't think people would realize that it's important to know.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

They don't I don't think a lot of people realize that musically. I think culturally with uh with like anime and things like that, there's we we definitely get that, but musically I think um that's very uh easy to miss because um there is kind of a cultural barrier, I think, between uh just in the language, you know, in the in the uh you know, because you know, you can't really serialize uh Japanese music into English, you know, it's not that kind of thing. You know, we've we've been able to do it with film and television, animation, etc. But you know, music you can't really do that. But that's what makes Harumi Osono a very fascinating artist. And I think it is time to kind of get into that.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

I know we've done a lot of build-up, but it's important because it's a one, this is probably out of all the records we've talked about so far, this is my favorite story about how you got this record, and I love it because I was there. Like we're dealing with a record that I actually like was there when you bought it, which the majority of our 2000 piece final collection you collected before meeting me. So that's part's really fun, and then it was just really fun. Like the Japanese culture and the Japanese music industry is really fun to talk about. Um, but yeah, we should we should get more into the record now. So not a lot of preamble on this one.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

So as we get into the record, there's uh there's a couple things, there's some things to kind of talk about Harumi Hisono, uh the man himself, is that you know, he was a child of uh of wor post-World War II. Yeah. So a lot of his music doesn't really contain much influence of traditional Japanese music, and he himself has said this, and he was much more influenced by Western rock and roll and pop, specifically the Beach Boys and the Beatles and and the birds and artists like that, and also like traditional boogie woogie and and that sort of big band jazz. But one of the other influences that really struck him was Exotica. And if for those that don't know what Exotica is, exotica I didn't know, I had to ask. Yeah, Exotica is basically westernized version of island music or Pacific Islander music.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

So I'm gonna be the that one person, because that's my role in this podcast. Yeah, think of the SpongeBob theme song. That is like an example of exotic.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Yeah, you you could you could definitely not make that argument, but like that is definitely like sort of follows in that.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah, those are the sonic sounds for sure.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Yeah, you know, like um there might be some marimba or thumb piano, and yeah, just kind of the music you imagine you think you that be is played on in like Taiwan or Fiji or things like that, but it's not authentic, it's it was the music made by Westerners. And Hosono was particularly influenced by an artist named Martin Denny who had a record called Quiet Village with a song in it called Firecracker, and um it just really struck him because he was like it it it I don't know, he just really gravitated towards that music, and that ended up influencing this record, uh Hosono House, and his lit and some of his later records too. But before that, he was also in a couple of rock bands. The second one called Happy End, where they were a rock psychedelic folk rock band, but they sung in Japanese, and that was not really heard of at that point. So that was kind of the first first big influences that Hosono brought to uh Japanese music was actually singing in Japanese, uh, with these kind of you know, with kind of Western folk and rock and roll influences.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah, I think like listening to the record, you know, and I've never listened to this record. This was I did it this is the first time for me listening. You've obviously knew about this before, but this was my first time. That's like the biggest thing on a first listen that is so obvious, is it is a rock and roll record, and it is not at all a traditional Japanese record. And you know, it it really made sense to me after visiting Japan because there kind of is like almost two schools of thought. Japan is very proud of its traditions. We learned that, like you know, we went to like a sumo tournament, we we uh did like a walking tour about like uh the geisha community and like people who are very into traditional Japanese art, it is alive alive and well, but it hasn't changed since the eighteen hundreds. They don't they don't touch it. Where I feel like in America, like you know, I'm a country artist, an alternative country artist, you could Argue that you know the country music that started in the 90s has developed and changed over the years. Where in Japan, like that traditional style of music, people don't it feels like people don't touch it, they just do something different.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

And part of that I think was because of World War II or just kind of stopped everything. Right. And so it just kind of stayed that way, and then it never really figured out a way to evolve in and of itself. And so and so Hosono was just kind of the artist. This is why he's so influential, one of the most influential in Japan, is that he kind of you know created an evolution of uh a type of Japanese music. But what's well and and and a lot of those psychedelic and folk influences and exotic influences, maybe not so much psychedelic, but they are present in Hosono House. But as his as his career went on, there were way a lot of cultural layers that just were that that he continued to incorporate where it got to the point where it wasn't necessarily the point of him being authentic. You know, we think of authenticity of an artist expressing themselves, and Osono was not necessarily one of those people. He more wanted to bring in these different ideas and sounds and thoughts that he that he felt passionately about to create his own world. And it starts here. And some of them have English titles, some of them don't. So so you know, so and there's there ha there hasn't been a ton of translations on at least some of these songs, but and the reason it's called Hasono House, I should say, also, is that it was recorded, he recorded it with the 16-track um uh recording console in his house with a band.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

So it was Which like people need to realize this is way before people were recording in their house. Yeah, like now that's a very normal thing. Like we have a recording studio in our house.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Yeah, and it was it was about it was a little bit before you could have home. I mean, people had home recording studios here and there, like the Beach Boys did by the late 60s, but you know, it was um but for the most part it was Sosono playing, you know, all the basses, a lot of the guitar a lot of the guitar acoustic guitars, singing everything and the singing lead, and he was actually he said this in an interview, he wasn't a singer, you know. He didn't he never wanted to be a singer, so he only just sang because you know he was he had to be the one to sing his own songs. Yeah. Um, which I will say, um, and I've I haven't really I this has been in my head all this time, and I have never mentioned this to mention this really, but for whatever reason, his voice actually reminds me, especially on some of the later stuff, on uh it reminds me of Bill Withers.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

I can see that.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Yeah, it it's it's a baritone bass voice, you know, and he's he's kind of you know got a little bit of a soul infliction in a non-singing way, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And that kind of and that kind of is my point. Like you you can listen to the record and you can very much hear like the American rock and roll influences in this record. And that was kind of I know we preambled like the Japanese culture a lot, but he would have been listening to those records. Yeah, and that's the thing that I I want people to realize is like how much like those American rock and roll sounds would have been in his circle of influence.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

And it was that combined with um exotica instrumentation, right? So you hear you know, hear marimbas, you hear melodica accordion, you know, yeah, these different elements.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

And that's the to me, that's the funny thing. And maybe it's because you know, I'm so lyrics driven, that was kind of the reason why I got into music. But obviously, I don't speak Japanese, and so you kind of find yourself gravitating to other things in this record. The instrumentation on this record is fascinating because each track, I mean, it's almost like an entire separate like when we go into record, we will start with like the core four, right? So we'll have like drums, keys, uh bass, lead electric, and we'll record all of that together live. The way this is done, it's almost like a different group of instruments each track. Like there was one, there's one track that it's like it's a accordion and it's uh a melodica. There's another one that it's like, what in the world is that percussion? Like a it sounds like a like a steel pot. It's definitely not that, but like it's definitely not the same instrumentation on each track. Like he definitely you can definitely tell, like he went in and he said, All right, this song needs to have this whole world around it, and drawing on those different influences and those different things. And I think that is so interesting because people don't record records like that because they don't have the time and the money to do it that way.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Well, I one thing I will say to say also is that I think for some Japanese artists, especially if you watch interviews with them or you see them kind of working, their their sort of approach to you know creating something, I think it's very different from Western, you know. I think they get a little they're a little bit more in some ways methodical intuitively, you know, because it's a different language, so d certain things are not expressed in the same way as they would be in English, you know. That's why like you can try to do a literal translation of some of these lyrics, and it might not necessarily come across in the way it was intended. So for a lot of these artists, you know, they were they were kind of you know going off a very the their own kind of unique approach and vibe to saying like, oh, this, you know, we do this, we do that, and you know, it's almost like a less exchange of words and more of like a more matter of fact of like this is what it is, you know. Kind of saying, yeah, this is what it is, and we are going to um do what we're gonna do to achieve that, right? You know, without without having to uh like kind of go back and forth on too many things, you know. It's all it's all very well thought out. And I think he kind of he kind of approached it in that way, and in some ways there was some spontaneity too, especially the first track, Rockabye, which um from what I understand was actually recorded just as a test demo, whereas he just um you know was just testing himself uh playing guitar and overdubbing bass or whatever and vocals, and and it it he I think he tried it with the band and it was just better as the demo. Yeah. So just to kick off the track list there.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah, like I because I always make notes as I kind of listen to the record, and my notes on this one were first track, feels Hawaiian inspired, second track, more rock and roll. Only English word is country music, which I thought was really interesting thing in that second track. And I when I was listening to her, I was like, this almost sounds like kind of country, and then it says that, and it was like that's so bizarre.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Like well, not not not only because not only because like Hosono does utilize the steel guitar or pedal steel and lap steel. That's what it is. And in some of the songs on this record, and in and in a lot of his other records, but yeah, he did grow up listening to to country music, and he's put out you know, uh definitely other records and songs in uh you know in the future uh later on in that style as well. So it never quite went away.

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah, but then I was like third track, melodic and accordion, like those are Polish instruments, kind of. Yeah, you know, and then like um and then horns. There's a ton of horns on the back half of the record too. And just like that's what I mean, like sonically, it's such a diverse palette of sounds that you just you just know he was listening to so many different things. Because you know, you create what you listen to, and I think that's just such a really just a really interesting thing about him as an artist. And I I I think one of the things about this artist is even though it doesn't use what I would consider traditional Japanese sounds, this is such a Japanese record.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

It is, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Because of that, because of that, like to me, with what we experience in the Japanese music scene, like that is for the most part what the culture listens to.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Yeah, exactly. It it has its you you can uh you can get a sense of the identity that it created and right what came out after it. Um and one one other note I'll make is you know, the thing about Japanese music too is that trying to remember all these songs, trying to remember how they go, trying to remember their titles, you know, it is possible, even if you don't understand the language, it just takes a bit more of like kind of you know, uh rinse and repeat of listening to the songs and trying to associate certain, you know, in this case, is because we you know we're not neither of us are familiar with certain Japanese words, more of you know, the vowel sounds and the phonetic uh spelling or or uh speaking or pronunciation of these words. Although, you know, probably the one that sticks out the most is Chuchu Gatsugoto, which is probably the most famous track from this record. Um, and uh I like to think that it related to um another song which he recorded on his next record, a Chattanooga Choo-Choo, which was a traditional big band song. Um, but uh um that's and that's another story. But yeah, you know, and yeah, all these songs just follow a very unique float in and of itself. And again, singing Japanese, you know, it was definitely um it definitely I think was able to bring this sense of for a lot of Japanese artists, this sense of like, oh, I can be myself or I can be whatever I can be Japanese and but still play whatever I want. And that and to your point, that was that's the thing too, is like you listen to you know, any Japanese, almost any Japanese artist, you know, post postona really, it's like they're playing pop, they're playing rock, they're playing jazz.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

And yeah, and if there's vocals, they are unless they're doing a cover, uh, they are definitely singing Japanese.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Right, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

So I have a question for you because I'm curious of your answer. How do you feel listening to a record that's in a completely different language that you do not understand at all? Like the English to Japanese, it's like very, very hard to understand, and vice versa. Like, I will say that was an interesting thing traveling there, is there is a huge language barrier. There there are very few people that are fluent in English in Japan. Yeah, you can because it's such a different language.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

You can kind of I mean, you know, because humans are humans, we understand um, you know, communication to a certain point, but you know, again, like I said before, in in how um, you know, Japanese language works, whether in record making or what have you, it's just a different approach, it's a different uh set, not only set not necessarily set of words, but set of expressions.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Right. And so here here's my question is how do you feel like listening to a record that is in Japanese or in other language in general? How does that change the way you listen to the record as opposed to a a record where you understand the language?

SPEAKER_03 33:34

I think the big thing is that it kind of forces you not to listen to the lyrics first because you don't understand the lyrics. Right. But what um what's interesting though is that part part of what fascinates me, what part of why I enjoy listening to non-English speaking music, and that's actually been for me um kind of a more common thing recently, is because I'm I'm very interested in in the idea of exploring other worlds and other worlds that revolves around the music that's created. And I'm not necessarily talking about Japan, Japan sp like in and of itself, but specifically the world that Hosono has created and that that whole nucleus of YMO exists in, because it is such uh an eclectic and prolific uh world that you know you could I mean, you know, you could do a whole podcast series on just every single project that involves any of those people and their associates. You could you could probably do like 500 episodes and or well let's I'll let's not a lot. Well let well let's well I'll I'll say I'll put it this way actually, you could do 200 episodes and still only be scratching the surface, you know, because there's so much because that would because there is so much, you know, and Hosono as he progressed, he continued to add cultural layer to cultural layer of just you know kind of uh subverting people's expectations about you know what is Japanese music or what is or how is this music presented, you know, authenticity, non-authenticity, you know, what is it creating, what is the point of it. So what really attracts me to it is just the the world that it creates, and that's why I've been on such a kick with a lot of that music. And and and by the way, it is not just limited to you know the uh style of music that is on this record, you know. Uh Hosano continued to evolve in in the exotica uh influences. He went into synth pop and electronic music and he did ambient music, he did Indian music, he went back and did boogie-woogie music and country music and folk and all these different things, you know, and so it's it's it's um you know it's uh it's such an eclectic and prolific world that you can't help but just continue to be a curious, you know. You could probably listen to this as a as a non-Japanese speaker, you could probably listen to this record, you know, ten times and still find interesting things to uh to kind of pick out and grab on to.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

So my favorite thing about this record, uh coming from it from someone who doesn't understand the lyrics, is the sonic piece of it. And I will say as a musician, what's inspiring about him and about this record in general is it opens your sonic palette and it says that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

And I think that's what's inspiring because because here I think I I get so in my head about genre and about the marketing side of it. And you know, you the thing about like other markets is they're smaller. There's smaller markets in the American market. When I was working with a lot of Irish bands, we had the conversation a lot. How do I get to the States? Because people don't realize like for a long time, and this is changing now today, but for a long time, what allowed your music to get on a national or international scale was proximity to the industry, right? Do the gatekeepers know who you are? And that industry primarily is in three places New York, LA, and Nashville. And if you the farther away you live from that, the harder it is to play the game. So as you can imagine, Japan is very far.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Well, and back in back in the day, it used to be l it was London.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yeah, and I'm talking about like the time he would have been around.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

No, the time he'd have been around, yeah, because um uh it wasn't you didn't really hear about a lot of Irish artists until the 80s when you had uh when you had U2, the Pogues, and uh Sinead O'Connor, you know, and they had to kind of go to London to to to kind of break through.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Yeah, and and so like there's something about bands that just geographically are far away from those hubs. And there's something beautiful that happens when you're not close to those hubs. There's almost like a freedom in I can make whatever I am inspired by because I'm not I'm not playing to the gatekeepers because I'm not even proximate I'm not even in the proximity of them. And I think like there is a freedom in this record that has been really inspiring to me just in the sonic landscape of it, and even track to track, like you can hear different genres in each track, you can hear different things um it was a explored.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

It was definitely a creative milestone in Japanese music because I think like a lot of places post-World War II, especially you know, the the allied countries like Germany as well, is that by that point pop music was just kind of a uh kind of a wasteland of kitsch, um and you know, very uninventive, uninspired, you know, show like like uh, you know, kind of like your Wayne Newton type of performers, things like that, you know, so there wasn't really anything um in those countries really that that the people that wanted to be more creative could grab onto, and it wasn't until they, you know, would sort of grab the influences from the other countries, other western countries, that they were able to create something unique and groundbreaking and interesting and help help music move forward, you know. And I think that's Hosono's greatest contribution is that he pushed Japanese music forward in so many different ways. As a solo artist, you know, after this record, he he did the tropical trilogy with the first record Tropical Dandy, which is my favorite Hosono record, absolutely marvelous record. It's coming out again on vinyl, definitely check it out. It's on streaming now, lo and behold, and then eventually hooking up with the YMO guys to do some of his solo work, and they were part of this um studio musician collective called Tin Pan Alley, who played on everybody's records, not uh including each other, much like we think of the Wrecking Crew as they're called, as they were called later on, the studio musicians in uh LA or the Funk Brothers in Motown, etc. And Harumi Hasono was part of that. He was a bassist, a great bassist. Um, and he also produced records, and then once the YMO guys got together after they put out their solo records, they did some groundbreaking things that we'll, you know, we're gonna talk about. But then, you know, uh Hosono just never stopped, and he, you know, he continues to this day, you know, he's been going around promoting the Tropical Dandy um uh reissue, and I think nowadays he's definitely now starting to embrace the younger audiences that have embraced his older music because you know, for for a while he was going back to the older music that he grew up with because that's what he wanted to do, but now he's kind of going back to his own music that he created and really embracing that and performing some of the music for for uh more audiences as well, um, not just in Japan, but outside in other countries. So he's done some shows in LA and New York and London, and it's been and and it's been and it's been great. And the last thing I'll say is that this record especially was a huge influence on um MacDamarco, who we actually saw in LA uh last week. And um it was at the Greek theater, was sold out, so it was a very unhinged performance, um, which was fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

It was the best word for it, yes, it was unhinged.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

And uh this record also influenced Harry Styles. He named his album Harry's House after this album of Sono's house.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Oh, that's cool. I didn't I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Yeah. And uh if you do listen to um if you listen to Harumi Sono's if you listen to Hosono House, if you also listen to Tropical Dandy and also his record Paris, which was the first one with uh the other members of Yellow Magic Orchestra, you will definitely hear how if you could if you listen to that, then listen to Mac DeMarco's like three first three or four records, you definitely hear such an influence sonically and musically on what Mac was doing. And Mac has also collaborated with Hermio Sono once or twice as well, you know?

SPEAKER_02 42:33

And that's one of the reasons, like if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, I've never heard of this record. Why would they talk about a record I've never heard of? You know, we're gonna talk about records you've definitely heard of on this podcast, and we're also gonna talk about records that maybe you haven't, because this record you maybe have never heard of, but I guarantee you've heard of Harry Styles' Harry's House, which won album of the year a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

It won album of the year, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

And I think that's what's so amazing about the lineage of music is there are records that you have probably never heard of, but they really are your favorite artist favorite records, and they are the reason why we have Harry's House.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

And they're and they're not limited geographically either, you know. And again, I love talking about that because I love talking about other worlds, you know, and I just I just love like the lineage of how artists become who they are.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

And I think that's what's so cool when we get to talk about kind of the more niche records or underground records that you may not know about. That's kind of the reason to do it.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

Mm-hmm. Um, I will say if you are interested in checking out this record, uh I regret to inform you it is not on Spotify for reasons. Um and uh it's actually very hard to find on vinyl because some of the reissues are out of print. Although the one I got was actually a new sealed copy of all things. Uh I I I still am befuddled. I Of course. Because I'm still I still get dumbfounded in how I actually was able to acquire this record in the wild. Which I you know there's very fun story.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

You don't. You like the chase of it. That's what's so funny about you. Is I've that's why we have a 2,000 piece record collection. And that's why we're talking about it, is because these are hand selected by you.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

There's a story behind everyone. There's a story behind each one that you've found.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Yeah. So you can find this record, you can listen to it in its entirety on YouTube. Individual tracks and the whole album in one video. So it is there if you would for you to check out.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

And we'll and we can link that in the show notes. Yeah, yeah. People to find.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Yeah, it'll be yeah, it's pretty, pretty, uh, pretty easy to find there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Um before we wrap up our conversation, yes. The one thing I want to give you room to talk about is fun facts about Hasono. Oh, God.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

Particularly, yes, I know where you're I know, I know. This is we've talked so many, said so many things about Hisono.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

And there I have a particular favorite one. Do you want to tell everyone the the what you told me that I find so interesting?

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Yes, so Hurumi Hasono's grandfather survived the Titanic. And is the only He's the only Japanese passenger at all. At all. And he survived the Titanic.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

Yeah, so the next question that everyone asks is is what and how and tell me more.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

So from what I understand, the story is that um it's actually kind of a complicated story because a lot of people know about the Titanic is that when they everyone was jumping ship, you know, who went first was the uh women and children. Yep. So when he, you know, was able to escape with everyone else, everyone thought he had taken one someone's seat. So there was actually kind of dishonor in the uh Hosono name uh for quite a quite a number of years.

SPEAKER_02 46:00

Which is a big deal in Japanese culture.

SPEAKER_03 46:03

Dishonor is like worse than death, I feel and there turned out to be some sources and evidence that came out later that proved that to not be the case, that you know, all the women like someone I think gave up their seat for him to go on, or everyone was already off by the time by the time he had to go on, like another man gave up his seat, so it brought honor back to the uh to the name. But yeah, yeah, so and if you look on the album cover of his uh Hosono's second record, Tropical Dandy, uh there is uh you'll see the Titanic kind of uh uh on the it's on the cover. Oh really? That's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. So just to remind you that his his grandfather survived the Titanic.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Yeah. That just a wild, like random tidbit about his family. I think this is probably the most fascinating artist we've talked about so far.

SPEAKER_03 46:57

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

For for both music reasons but also cultural reasons, and also just like what a wild history, family history.

SPEAKER_03 47:09

Yeah, yes, sorry, I was drinking something. Yes, no, absolutely, and uh not really like another artist like him. I mean, there's definitely a lot of artists there that out there that definitely are eclectic and done so many different things, but Hosono, at least for you know, Japanese music, was definitely that person, that artist.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

So, final question. This is the question that we always end our podcast with, which is why does this album matter to the culture and why would somebody want to listen to it?

SPEAKER_03 47:42

Well, I'll say this, um, because I think we've talked about how it's how it's important to Japanese culture, and um, you know, I think in terms of how we find re how to find relevance with it in our American music culture, I think, you know, part of that is at least for me, I will say I'll start by saying this on a personal level. I think for me, I've been sort of on this kick of trying to find new things and trying to find new ideas and sounds and types of artistry that are out there, you know. And, you know, some some of those types of things are not necessarily always readily available in the US, you know, because at least for me as a music lover and listener and musician, you know, um, I've I tried to hear it all. And sometimes you get to a point where you're like, well, I've heard everything or most everything. What else new is there? And that's why you there's this idea to just kind of go go outside of that and find new things that are not only musically interesting, but also influential as well, and that's what Hosono is. And again, we've mentioned MacDamarco, Harry Styles being artists that have been influenced by Hosono himself, and uh, you know, and and I think this record, you know, is definitely I think what it does, I think what it does bring to the culture is an introduction to Japanese popular music, which evolved into things like city pop and uh you know the shibuya sound, which YMO was sort of instrumental in. We'll get to that in in part two. But yeah, so that's what I think personally and culturally that's what uh makes this record so important. It's like if you want to get a sense of Japanese popular music and where it really started, the happy end records from Hosono's second band are are great examples, and his other records are great. You know, he doesn't he doesn't have a bad record, you know. You can always find something interesting from any of his records, whether they're the synthpop stuff or the throwback boogie woogie country things.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Yeah, I think I think for me, I would say this record is significant because of the way it expands your mind about genre and just different sonic palettes. I would say as a westerner, this record is significant because music is culture. Like it's where culture has a sound. And if you want to understand Japanese culture, this is a wonderful record to to do that with. Well, thanks everyone for tuning into this episode of Home Records. This is like we've been kind of alluding to, this is part one. Yes, we're gonna do a part two for this because Hosono went on to form Yellow Magic Orchestra.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

YMO.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

Uh YMO, and we're gonna talk about a record from that band on our part two. Um, so you can see where this legacy continues.

SPEAKER_03 51:47

Yes, because YMO was its own entity, a very, very, very influential, arguably, probably more in the sense of the West probably recognizes the influence of YMO much more. And so the next episode will be exploring that.

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Yeah, so tune in for our next episode to hear part two. But as for today, if you like what you're hearing, you can always follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever your podcasts are available.

SPEAKER_03 52:18

If you'd like to support the show, please give us a five-star review and be sure to spread the word to all your friends and family.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

And enemies.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

And thank you once again, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

See you guys.

SPEAKER_03 52:30

Bye.