Takashi Matsumoto and Haruomi Hosono faced a choice when starting a rock band in 1969: should the lyrics be sung in English, the genre’s lingua franca at the time, or Japanese? After a debate, the pair opted for their native tongue, and totally changed the course of their country’s music.
Their group Happy End – which also counted guitarist Shigeru Suzuki and guitarist/vocalist Eiichi Ohtaki as members – merged western-inspired folk-rock with Japanese vocals – a decision that has influenced everything from internet-embraced 80s “city pop” funk to modern J-pop. “My mother language is Japanese. If you translate it, that’s like adding filters,” explains the 74-year-old Matsumoto from a meeting room overlooking downtown Tokyo. “It will change the original meaning. Then it’s not my instinct or my words anymore.”
