Haruomi Hosono | Artist

Haruomi "Harry" Hosono is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer born 1947 in Tokyo. 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. 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. 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. The trio formed Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Hosono was one of the first producers to recognize the appeal of video game sounds and music. YMO's self-titled debut in 1978 contained substantial video game sounds and after YMO disbanded an early project was an album simply titled Video Game Music containing mixed and edited Namco arcade game music and sounds. Video Game Music was released in 1984 as an early example of a chiptune record and the first video game music album. From his ecclectic catalogue comprising 44 studio albums, some standouts include Hosono House (1973), Pacific (1978), Paraiso (1978), Philharmony (1982), Ñokto de la galaksia fervojo (Soundtrack) (1985), and Medicine Compilation: From the Quiet Lodge (1993). One of the very first songs Hosono composed for his band Happy End, "Kaze wo Atsumete" (1971), later appeared in the American film Lost in Translation and on its soundtrack in 2003. In July 2025, Hosono performed his first UK show in seven years at London's Southbank Centre. The concert received heightened attention following praise from One Direction founder Harry Styles, who explained that his 2022 album, Harry's House, was "named after Haruomi Hosono.

Artist Website: wikipedia/Haruomi_Hosono

Featured Albums: Haruomi Hosono

Related Artists: Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Akiko Yano, Harry Hosono