Love Psychedelico
Love Psychedelico is a Japanese rock band, often called Delico for short. They are popular not only in Japan but also Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Members
- Kumi – lead vocals, guitars, etc.
- * Kumi speaks English because she lived in San Francisco, the United States, in her youth. She got married on March 9, 2010.
- Naoki – guitars, bass, backing vocals, etc.
- * Naoki wrote his name in their early works as "Naoki Sato". He produces The Bawdies.
Backup band
- Hirohisa Horie : keyboards, guitar
- Kiyoshi Takakuwa : bass
- Kenichi Shirane : drums
- Nobumasa Yamada : recording engineer, drums
- Tomohiko Gondo: programming
History
They signed with major label Victor in 1999.
Their first album, The Greatest Hits, sold over two million copies. Their second album Love Psychedelic Orchestra, released on January 9, 2001, sold 690,000 copies.
Love Psychedelico visited America in March 2001 and appeared at the music festival SXSW as part of the Japan Nite event. They also toured extensively through the club and bar circuit in the United States, garnering largely positive reactions. American cities the band has said to have enjoyed playing were Nashville, Austin, and Kumi's childhood home of San Francisco.
They have released two albums since, Love Psychedelico III, in early 2004, and compilation album Early Times, in February 2005. This best-of compilation received a positive response in the Taiwanese J-pop market and the group visited Taiwan in June of that year. They held a concert in Taipei on June 22 where many fans gathered, including a sizable number of celebrity attendees. It proved to be a very successful concert for the duo who do not usually appear publicly.
For the promotion of their album, Golden Grapefruit, Love Psychedelico made their first televised music program appearance on Bokura no Ongaku in 2007. It is also notable that they were interviewed by Yoko Ono, famous experimental musician and widow of John Lennon.
They released the album This is Love Psychedelico in the United States on May 20 from HackTone Records because David Gorman, the president of the label, wanted a contract with them after listening to a record he got from an acquaintance. It marked their American debut. This album was also released on June 18, 2008 in Japan as This is Love Psychedelico ~U.S.Best~.
Style
Stylistically, Love Psychedelico is highly reminiscent of the British Invasion of the late 60s, both members having cited The Beatles and Led Zeppelin as influences, though the influence of American folk and blues are also present. To pay tribute to their influences, Love Psychedelico sometimes borrow song titles from the bands that influence them.Kumi's lyrics mix English and Japanese; while doing so is common in popular Japanese music, Kumi's performance is marked by fluent English pronunciation and an English-inflected pronunciation of Japanese, similar to that of many Japanese who have spent significant time abroad. While she did spend five years in San Francisco from the ages of 2 to 5, her spoken Japanese does not display the same affectations. This pronunciation makes the group's songs difficult to reproduce in karaoke performances in contrast bands such as Superfly who have a similar stylistic approach but without the English-affected Japanese.
Discography
| Year | Title | Notes | Oricon singles charts | Oricon sales total | Album |
| 2000 | "Lady Madonna " | Initially released on tape independently. | 88 | 19,000 | The Greatest Hits |
| 2000 | "Your Song" | 17 | 140,000 | The Greatest Hits | |
| 2000 | "Last Smile" | 11 | 270,000 | The Greatest Hits | |
| 2001 | "Free World" | 5 | 160,000 | Love Psychedelico Orchestra | |
| 2001 | "I Will Be with You" | 10 | 62,000 | Love Psychedelico Orchestra | |
| 2002 | "Hadaka no Ōsama" | 14 | 24,000 | Love Psychedelico III | |
| 2003 | "I Am Waiting for You" | 26 | 14,000 | Love Psychedelico III | |
| 2003 | "My Last Fight" | 12 | 39,000 | Love Psychedelico III | |
| 2004 | "Fantastic World" | 30 | 9,000 | Early Times | |
| 2005 | "Right Now" | 28 | 11,000 | — | |
| 2006 | "Aha! " | 25 | 10,000 | Golden Grapefruit | |
| 2010 | "Dry Town /Shadow Behind" | Re-cut single. | 37 | 6,000 | Love Psychedelico Orchestra/Abbot Kinney/In This Beautiful World/ |
| 2011 | "It's You" | — | — | In This Beautiful World | |
| 2012 | "Beautiful World/Happy Xmas " | — | — | In This Beautiful World | |
| 2014 | "Good Times, Bad Times" | Digital-only single. | — | — | LOVE PSYCHEDELICO THE BEST II |
| 2015 | "Love Is All Around" | Digital-only single. | — | — | — |
| 2015 | "Merry Xmas To You" | Digital-only single; a Christmas "jingle" recorded as part of a 2015 collaboration campaign with the Shibuya Mark City shopping center. The only lyrics in the song are its title, which is repeated a few times by lead singer KUMI. | — | — | — |
| 2016 | "This moment/C'mon, it's my life" | Third double A-side single and fourth consecutive digital-only single. "This moment" was used in a commercial campaign in April 2016 for JACCS Co, Ltd., a Japan-based consumer credit services company, for whom the band has licensed three other songs. "C'mon, it's my life" was used in a commercial campaign in March 2016 for Goodyear Tires in Japan. | — | — | — |
DVDs
- The Film 1999.12—2002.05
- In Concert at Budokan
- Golden Grapefruit Box
- LOVE PSYCHEDELICO Live Tour 2017 LOVE YOUR LOVE at THE NAKANO SUN PLAZA
Works cited