![]() Hosono and Suzuki formed Tin Pan Alley with Masataka Matsutoya, before Hosono started the pioneering electronic music act Yellow Magic Orchestra and Suzuki continued work as a guitarist and solo musician. They had their last concert on September 21, 1973, titled City -Last Time Around, with a live album of the show released as Live Happy End the following year.Īfter breaking up, all four members continued to work together and contribute to each other's solo albums and projects. As Matsumoto explained: "We had already given up on Japan, and with, we were saying bye-bye to America too-we weren't going to belong to any place." While the band officially disbanded on December 31, 1972, the album was released in February 1973. These feelings were conveyed in the closing track "Sayonara America, Sayonara Nippon", which received some contributions from Parks and Little Feat guitarist Lowell George. A language barrier along with opposition between the Los Angeles studio personnel and Happy End was also apparent, which further frustrated the group. Although Hosono later described the work with Parks as "productive," the album sessions were tenuous, and the members of Happy End were disenchanted with their vision of America they had anticipated. įor their third album, also titled Happy End (this time written in the Latin alphabet), they signed with King Records and recorded in 1972 in Los Angeles with Van Dyke Parks producing. The success of Happy End's debut album and their second, Kazemachi Roman released a year later, proved the sustainability of Japanese-language rock in Japan. Previously, almost all popular rock music in Japan was sung in English. There were highly publicized debates held between prominent figures in the Japanese rock industry, most notably the members of Happy End and Yuya Uchida, regarding whether rock music sung entirely in Japanese was sustainable. This album marked an important turning point in Japanese music history, as it sparked what would be known as the "Japanese-language Rock Controversy" ( ja:日本語ロック論争, Nihongo Rokku Ronsō). Their self-titled debut album (written in Japanese as はっぴいえんど) was released in August on the experimental record label URC (Underground Record Club). Matsumoto stated that at the time Happy End started, they were influenced by Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, and the Grateful Dead. ![]() The band began recording their own album in April 1970. The group changed their name to Happy End and were the backing band for Nobuyasu Okabayashi, performing on his album Miru Mae ni Tobe. In March 1970, Hosono, Matsumoto and Shigeru Suzuki contributed to Kenji Endo's album Niyago. After playing shows together, Hosono eventually invited Matsumoto to join the psychedelic rock band Apryl Fool, which the drummer described as being influenced by bands like Vanilla Fudge, "really progressive sounds for the time." When their keyboardist, Hiro Yanagida, started getting more into music like Buffalo Springfield and the West Coast sound that was becoming popular, Matsumoto said Hosono got into it too, and "we started shifting toward that style." In October 1969, Hosono and Matsumoto formed a group named Blue Valentine ( ヴァレンタイン・ブルー) right after Apryl Fool disbanded. When his band Burns needed a bass player, drummer Takashi Matsumoto reached out to Haruomi Hosono, a Rikkyo University student whom he heard was quite skilled. MTV described Happy End's music as "rock with psych smudges around the edges." History Career They are considered to be among the most influential artists in Japanese music. Composed of Haruomi Hosono, Takashi Matsumoto, Eiichi Ohtaki and Shigeru Suzuki, the band's pioneering sound was regarded as avant-garde to most Japanese at the time. Happy End ( Japanese: はっぴいえんど, Hepburn: Happī Endo) was a Japanese folk rock band active from 1969 to 1972.
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