Make Believe Mailer 76: The House Always Wins
Fifty Years Of "Hosono House"
At some point in the 2010s, Hosono House became the go-to Japanese album representing cool and craft. “Including the name of the album itself, right? Inspired by…..” one of the hosts of the Today Show trailed off last year when sitting across from Harry Styles to talk about then new album Harry’s House. “Uhhh…Haruomi Hosono,” Styles replies, sounding like even he’s aware he’s letting the NBC talent down. “Oh…OK…wow…” they respond.
But the fact Styles even pushed Hosono’s name to the forefront…multiple times, culminating in a sit-down with Hosono himself…says a lot of how the Japanese artist’s debut solo album — and Hosono himself — has become celebrated as it turned 50 this past Thursday. In the past decade, Hosono has enjoyed a global embrace in a way more pronounced than in the years before. Here’s Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend looping an ambient piece Hosono made for the sofa display rooms of Muji in the 1980s. Here’s Mac DeMarco joking that he’s “just been trying to rip off” Hosono for his career, which I think might transcend any goof. Here’s article upon article upon article from the 2010s offering gateways into his vast catalog and trumpeting the career of this “unknown” to the West creator.
Critically, though, this all extends to Japan as well. While certainly beloved thanks to his time in Happy End, his solo work and (especially) as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra — dude starred in Lawson commercials in the ‘90s! — the 2010s was the decade of Hosono, both thanks to continued celebration of his vast body of work and due to a new generation of artists clearly indebted to his musical legacy.
He also kept releasing new music that was received positively.
Yuta Orisaka topped Music Magazine’s initial 100 Best Albums Of The 2010’s list, with a set of songs owing a lot to the sounds you’d hear on Hosono House and moments where the young singer/songwriter practically manifests Hosono’s delivery as his own. Hosono protégé Hoshino Gen became a household name, playing around with a concept called “Yellow Music” very obviously shaped by his mentor’s past. Life-is-breezy rockers never young beach enjoyed a breakthrough with an album called Yashinoki House, influence loud and clear, if alliteration forgotten.
That band’s singer and primary songwriter Yuma Abe…who also just put out an EP screaming “did you know I’ve listened to every Hosono album from the ‘70s, I did I did!”…took part in an interview as one of the many domestic tributes to Hosono House turning 50, chatting with Hosono alongside Okamotos’ member Hama Okamoto. It’s a fun albeit fluffy chat, more about the two younger creators getting a chance to gush about the details of Hosono House (“oh that drum hit!”) while also finding Hosono…fresh off meeting Styles the day before…somewhat baffled as to why this album became such a touchstone. It’s just him and pals lazing around at Hosono’s house, playing music and kind of just having a good time.
That’s…kind of exactly why it has become a 21st century part of the Japanese music canon.
To understand Hosono House, you first must listen to four Japanese cowboys croon and yodel. Country Pumpkin’s 1972 full-length Country Pumpkin brought together Japanese country musicians Jimmie Tokita, Keiichi Teramoto, Takahiro Saito1 and Yoshio Ono to form a very niche supergroup, but one that absolutely must have thrilled the person in charge of the project — Haruomi Hosono. In the same way Tatsuro Yamashita would almost certainly be jazzed to work with an actual set of doo-wop singers, I could only imagine the excitement coming over Hosono getting the chance to work with a set of country western singers, especially ones born in the same country as himself and with the same affinity for America he held.
Hosono grew up an Americanophile, listening to U.S. doo-wop as a toddler and having access to pricey American records from the likes of Buffalo Springfield and The Band that few in the nation could dream of accessing2. “At the time, my generation were all obsessed with American culture. Not just the music, but the whole hippie culture and everything surrounding it,” Hosono told DeMarco for Dazed in 2019. To that end, Hosono took up residence in sleepy Sayama, tucked away in Saitama Prefecture just next to Tokyo. Part of the charm of this area was the presence of a U.S. Air Force Base, which resulted in a surplus of American-style houses both spacious and cheap. The Hosono house of Hosono House was one of these bizzaro suburb-ripped structures, though today following the directions on the LP leads to a parking lot.
Wildly, plenty of places like Hosono’s house still do exist, in a part now called Johnson Town and basically offering a “Little America” right in the heart of Saitama.
Country Pumpkin is a musical preview of where Hosono would go on his debut, both for slippery “influence” reasons — Hosono brings in most of the players making up his Tin Pan Alley crew, and they proceed to blend then-modern takes on folk, funk, rock and more alongside the corn-pone stylings of the Japanese country superstars — and undeniable ones — the centerpiece of Country Pumpkin is the melancholy “Owari No Kissetsu,” which Hosono covered a year later on Hosono House. It’s a snapshot of where his mind was musically, and where his tastes were going.
The biggest difference? Country Pumpkin was a studio affair, with label expectations and cutting-edge equipment. Hosono House would be a cozier creative affair.
Hosono House has replaced Happy End’s Kazemachi Roman as the cool ‘70s Japan album to know. Part of this was inevitable to the latter’s legacy — that band, featuring Hosono, is credited as showing how Japanese singing could work with America-born rock, revealing new possibilities previously unheard. This weight made it the Japanese rock album, and the one most frequently topping best-Japanese-albums lists published domestically (including the first major one) and constantly discussed in terms more academic. It was last truly “cool” when a song from it appeared on the soundtrack to Lost In Translation. Today, it feels more like homework — great and important, but more about “have to listen to” than “you gotta listen to this!”
Just as important, Kazemachi Roman doesn’t fit with modern times. It’s a rock album, by a band with big ambitions and major-label backing. Happy End could access nifty studios and, for Roman’s follow-up, flew out to LA to record3. When I talked to Takashi Matsumoto, he mentioned multiple times how Happy End’s albums never really sold well…a sticking point to him and the group. There’s a serious industry cloud hanging over it.
Hosono House is the opposite. It’s Hosono getting people out to his Saitama abode, hooking up gear in tatami rooms and playing around. While he seems to have taken it seriously, he also didn’t fret about it — that 50th anniversary interview finds him saying he wasn’t really pressured to deliver a big ol’ solo statement like Happy End bandmate Eiichi Ohtaki was focused on. There’s an intimate playfulness throughout, whether it’s folks making choo-choo sounds or a tipsy funk groove (cowbell!) pouring out of “Fuku Wa Uchi Oni Wa Soto” even before they introduce scratching sounds.
It’s homemade.
That’s something artists everywhere — Japan and beyond — can connect with. When Hosono made his debut, home-recording technology was only just then becoming good enough and accessible enough for someone to really make something good. Now, it’s practically the default for young artists, and it isn’t surprising that artists like Mac DeMarco4, Ezra Koenig and beyond gravitate to Hosono and especially this album. Harry Styles was never in the same class as those two, but when he wanted to make something that felt homemade…well, the House won.
Hosono House isn’t the best Hosono album5, but it is where his guiding artistic vision begins, free of the studio forces hovering over Happy End or even a Country Pumpkin. That he could pull that off, make something this groovy and do it from home…that resonates with a 21st-century creator, and is the part of his debut that has truly elevated it into a new part of the Japanese (global???) canon. Step inside, and you can find part of your own life somewhere in the walls of Hosono’s debut, because he’s a lot like you, just separated by half a century.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Follow the Best of 2023 Spotify Playlist Here!
I beg you to click this one and just been blown away by the context, seriously, I didn’t know this existed until working on this.
Besides just being a fascinating Wikipedia entry, the story of the lone Japanese survivor of the 1912 Titanic sinking and Hosono’s grandfather Masabumi hints at the privilege his lineage allowed him. Regular schmucks couldn’t get a Moby Grape album!
An experience Hosono says was very influential for his debut…intriguing, since those sessions sound like kind of a mess.
There’s an entire sub story here where Mac DeMarco — heavily influenced by Hosono — become the most influential indie-rock guy of the 2010s, influencing even more sloppy-types without the chops, who are in their own way doing Hosono. Double twist…DeMarco also became the biggest inspiration for a whole half-decade of Japanese indie types…oh, the Carhartt I use to see at Liquidroom!…which results in this house of mirrors-type reflecting of styles, with Hosono in an indirect way influencing goofballs in Setagaya.
Let’s just say…stick around next year, for a 50th anniversary I’m ready to gush about a ton.