Haruomi Hosono (Japanese: 細野 晴臣, Hepburn: Hosono Haruomi; born July 9, 1947), sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop for decades as well as pop music outside of Japan. He also inspired genres such as city pop and Shibuya-kei, and as the leader of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, contributed to the development and pioneering of numerous electronic genres.
The grandson of Titanic survivor Masabumi Hosono, Haruomi began his career with the psychedelic rock band Apryl Fool, before achieving recognition both nationally and internationally, as a founding member of the bands Happy End and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Hosono has also released many solo albums covering a variety of styles, including film soundtracks and a variety of electronic ambient albums. As well as recording his own music, Hosono has done considerable production work for other artists such as Miharu Koshi, Sheena and the Roketts, Sandii & the Sunsetz, Chisato Moritaka and Seiko Matsuda. In 2003, Hosono was ranked by HMV at number 44 on their list of the top 100 Japanese pop acts of all time.
Contents
Biography
Hosono is the grandson of Masabumi Hosono, the only Japanese passenger and survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic. Hosono first came to attention in Japan as the bass player of the psychedelic rock band Apryl Fool, alongside drummer Takashi Matsumoto, who released the album The Apryl Fool in 1969. Hosono and Matsumoto then formed the influential folk rock group Happy End with Eiichi Ohtaki and Shigeru Suzuki. One of the songs he composed for Happy End, "Kaze wo Atsumete" (1971), later appeared in the American film Lost in Translation and on its soundtrack in 2003.
After Happy End disbanded in 1972, Hosono and Suzuki formed Caramel Mama (キャラメル・ママ) with Tatsuo Hayashi and Masataka Matsutoya the following year. They changed their name to Tin Pan Alley (ティン・パン・アレー) a year later and worked as session musicians for other artists, such as Yumi Arai. Suzuki said the idea was to form a collective like the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, but things did not go as planned.
Hosono released his first solo album in 1973, Hosono House. His involvement in electronic music also dates back to the early 1970s, when he performed the electric upright bass for Yōsui Inoue's album Kōri no Sekai (1973) and Osamu Kitajima's album Benzaiten (1974), both of which utilize synthesizers, electric guitars, and in the latter, electronic drums and rhythm machines.
In 1977, Hosono invited Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi to work on his exotica-flavoured album Paraiso, which included electronic music produced using the Yamaha CS-80 polyphonic synthesizer and ARP Odyssey synthesizer. The band was named "Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band" and, having been recorded in late 1977, Paraiso was released in early 1978. The three worked together again for the 1978 electronic album Pacific, which included an early version of the song "Cosmic Surfin'".
In 1978, he released an innovative electronic soundtrack for a fictional Bollywood film, Cochin Moon, together with artist Tadanori Yokoo and future YMO band members Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hideki Matsutake. Inspired by a trip to India and "the exotic, luxurious, and seemingly wonder-filled scenarios played out in Indian cinemas", it was an experimental "electro-exotica" album fusing exotic Indian music (reminiscent of Ravi Shankar and Bollywood music) with electronic music, including an early "synth raga" song entitled "Hum Ghar Sajan" (from a Guru Granth Sahib phrase). The same year, he contributed to Sakamoto's song "1000 Knives" for his solo album, Thousand Knives, which experimented with fusing electronic music with traditional Japanese music in early 1978.
Bands and collaborations
Apryl Fool
Happy End
Tin Pan Alley
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Friends of Earth (F.O.E) (with Eiki Nonaka)
HIS (with Kiyoshirō Imawano and Fuyumi Sakamoto)
Testpattern (with Yukihiro Takahashi, Fumio Ichimura, and Masao Hiruma)
Love, Peace & Trance (Mimori Yusa, Miyako Koda and Mishio Ogawa)
Swing Slow (with Miharu Koshi)
HAT (with Atom Heart and Tetsu Inoue)
Harry & Mac (with Makoto Kubota)
Tin Pan (with Tatsuo Hayashi and Shigeru Suzuki)
Sketch Show (with Yukihiro Takahashi)
HASYMO (previously Human Audio Sponge) (Sketch Show and Ryuichi Sakamoto, with Keigo Oyamada, Hiroshi Takano, Christian Fennesz, Tomohiko Gondō and Ren Takada as live support)
Discography
Albums
Making of Non-Standard Music/Making of Monad Music (EP) (1984, Non Standard)
N.D.E. ("Near Death Experience") (1995)
Interpieces Organization (1996, by Haruomi Hosono & Bill Laswell)
Road to Louisiana (ルイジアナ珍道中, Ruijiana Chindōchū) (1999, with Makoto Kubota as "Harry & Mac")
Contributions
By Yumi Matsutoya:
Hikō-ki Gumo (1973) (contributed bass)
Misslim (1974) (contributed bass and cowbell)
Cobalt Hour (1975) (contributed bass)
14-banme no Tsuki (The 14th Moon) (1976) (contributed steel drum)
Benisuzume (1978) (contributed bass)
CBS/Sony Sound Image Series:
Pacific (with Shigeru Suzuki and Tatsuro Yamashita) (tracks 1, 4 and 8 composed and performed by Hosono) (1978)
The Aegean Sea (with Masataka Matsutoya and Takahiko Ishikawa) (tracks 3 and 4 composed and performed by Hosono) (1979)
Vol. 1 – Island Music (with Suzuki, Yamashita, Matsutoya, Ishikawa and Ryuichi Sakamoto) (tracks 1, 7, 9 and 10 composed and performed by Hosono) (1983)
Vol. 2 – Off Shore (Suzuki, Yamashita, Matsutoya, Sakamoto, Masaki Matsubara and Kazumasa Akiyama) (tracks 1 and 2 composed and performed by Hosono) (1983)
3D Museum (1993)
Melon Brains (1994)
Goku (1995)
Love, Peace & Trance (1995)
Lattice (2000)
Video Game Music (1984, songs from Namco games arranged and produced by Hosono)
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (風の谷のナウシカ, Kaze no Tani no Naushika) (1984, anime soundtrack, only produced theme song sung by Narumi Yasuda)
Videography
Composition work
Imokin Trio (イモ欽トリオ):
High School Lullaby (ハイスクールララバイ) (1981)
Teardrop Tanteidan (ティアドロップ探偵団) (1982)
Miki Fujimura:
仏蘭西映画
夢・恋・人 (1983)
妖星傅
春 Mon Amour
Yoshie Kashiwabara: Shiawase Ondo (しあわせ音頭) (1982)
Starbow: Heartbreak Taiyōzoku (ハートブレイク太陽族) (1982)
Kumiko Yamashita:
赤道小町ドキッ (1982)
Teenage Eagles (1983)
Kawakamisan to Nagashimasan: きたかチョーさんまってたドン (1983)
Miki Matsubara: Paradise Beach (Sophie's Theme) (パラダイス ビーチ(ソフィーのテーマ), Paradaisu Biichi (Sofii no Teema)) (1983)
Seiko Matsuda:
Tegoku no Kiss/Wagamama na Kataomoi (天国のキッス／わがままな片想い) (1983)
Glass no Ringo (ガラスの林檎) (1983)
Pink no Mozart (ピンクのモーツァルト) (1984)
Shin'ichi Mori:
New York Monogatari (紐育物語) (1983)
Whiskey Iro no Machi de (ウイスキー色の街で)
Filmography
Music
Evening Primrose (1974)
Summer Secret (1982)
Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)
Paradise View (1985)
A Promise (1986)
Jazz Daimyō (1986)
Murasaki SHikubu-Genji Monogatari (1987)
Hoshi wo Tsugumono (1990)
Southern Winds (1993)
On the Way (2000)
House of Himiko (2005)
Appleseed Ex Machina (2007, Music supervising director)
Shoplifters (2018)
Acting
Izakaya Chōji (1983)
A Y.M.O. Film Propaganda (1984)
Paradise view (1985)
Shigatsu no Sakana (1985)
Binetsu Shōnen (1987)
Norwegian Wood (2010): Record Shop Manager
Isle of Dogs (2018): Scrap (Japanese dub)
They Say Nothing Stays the Same (2019)
Bullets, Bones and Blocked Noses (2021, TV miniseries): Barber
Related books
Soichiro Suzuki (2015). Hosono Haruomi Rokuonjustu: Bokura wa Koushite Oto wo Tsukuttekita. DU BOOKS. ISBN 978-4-907583-69-9.