Haruomi Hosono review — a rare glimpse of Harry Styles' inspiration

Times

22-07-2025

This Royal Festival Hall concert was an extremely rare chance to see one of the great figures of Japanese art music. A 78-year-old who passed through the early 1970s folk rock band Happy End and the electronic pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra, while making a series of solo albums that forged the sophisticated style of Japanese music known as city pop, Haruomi Hosono has a back catalogue like no other — and also inspired Harry Styles' album Harry' s House. So it was a shame that he limited his actual time on stage, filling the gaps in various ways when really the audience simply wanted to be in his presence.
The support act, a youthful Japanese experimental troupe, were given an hour's worth of stage time, a decision that might have had something to do with their having Haruomi's grandson on bass guitar. For the main event Hosono's female backing singers, also on xylophone and keyboards, sang a medley of his songs, including 1975's dreamlike Honey Moon. Finally the man himself arrived, a sprightly figure in beatnik cap and sunglasses, as did a handful of old favourites including the wonderfully laid-back Bara to Yaju, from his classic 1973 solo album Hosono House. Then he was off again.
'He is a legendary musician and a famous smoker,' his guitarist announced, explaining the reason for Hosono's exit, which left the band to play Firecracker, an old Yellow Magic Orchestra favourite, on their own while their leader went off for a cigarette break. He returned to do The Madmen, another YMO classic, and his own Sports Men, which with its bright electronic melody and urbane mood set the template for Japan's city pop sound. Backed by an extremely good band, this was complex music with a carefree quality, somewhere between tropical and avant-garde, which made it a joy to witness. Not least when Hosono left the stage while flapping his arms like a chicken.