HAPPY END [AKA: YUDEMEN]

It's funny, that this album "Happy End (aka Yudemen)" was my second Japanese rock album in those days I'd been immersed in British and American rock scene. And you can understand why I, a Japanese rock hater in my adolescence bought this album, released in 1970.

From the very beginning, this dark and heavy guitar fuzz is too cool for me to ignore. Yes in my younger days there were a bunch of cheap. cheesy pop artists in Japan, that I could never listen to ... I'd assumed Western music scene should be seriously cool, and this should be true as honestly I say. However, this kick-off of them broke my assumption in pieces. According to the liner notes in their album sleeve, they gave thanks to lots of Western rock artists (e.g. The Grateful Dead, Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or so) and 'lots of Japanese musicians and poets'. Haruomi HOSONO had already created their original psychedelia by merging Japanese inner poetic inspiration into British / American rock, and the talented quartet had finished their 'Japanese Rock (as a proper noun)' finally in this album, I guess.

HAPPY END told us about their mental / physical development with rebellion / confusion against adult world. They played not simple pop nor Adult Oriented Rock, but heavy bluesy hard rock blended with acid (sometimes traditional) folk, as if they should have narrated their life carefully. In Japanese music scene 40 years ago ... despite of their strict and quite-skilled composition and playing, they could not be appreciated enough (except by well-understanding reviewers), I'm afraid. Not progressive really their sound structure in this stuff is, but like The Beatles, it should called as progressive that they dared launch such a heavy / bluesy / dark / severe soundscape, let me say. Nowadays HAPPY END are considered as one of pioneers in Japanese Rock world, that has continued ceaselessly. Worth listening for every progressive rock fan.