Ryuichi Sakamoto/YMO -- Happy End

 

Although I spent one month of 1981 in Japan, I still can't imagine what a time it was for Japanese music lovers over there back in those days. There was the regular kayo kyoku along with the Golden Age of Aidoru rolling in, and at the same time, there were the twin lines of City Pop and technopop for those who had some more particular tastes. Of course, outside of Japan, there was what remained of disco, the roaring New Wave and just good ol' American pop.

But at the same time, I can also believe that some of the more outlying stuff, musically speaking, would never have come onto weekly shows such as "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）or "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）. It was just a little too weird, not to put too fine a point on my expression. For example, Yellow Magic Orchestra was having its heyday as the No. 1 band in Japan with its amazing and catchy technopop but some of their other melodic adventures further afield may have been considered a little too outré. 

I am not one of those people, by and large...otherwise, this blog would have been far smaller by this point. And there's a lot I like about Ryuichi Sakamoto's（坂本龍一）"Happy End" which was the Side B to his April 1981 single "Front Line". It certainly doesn't sound as if The Professor had wanted to pay any tribute to his then-bandmate Haruomi Hosono's（細野晴臣）old band from a decade earlier. In fact, I would say that "Happy End" sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a ballet performed by shiny silver androids and robots with that synth-string playing a classical melody.

A version of "Happy End" was even included in Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1981 "BGM" album. I had forgotten about that but it was no wonder. That synth-string melody was taken out of that version so what I was listening to was even more outré and avant-garde. Couldn't see this played live on a music show. It didn't strike me as being a happy end as it was more of a drunk high end after having too much of that absinthe of malice.