“There is no obstruction in sight. The sound echoed in the sky and the ground…”
The line is found in the song “Street Story” which is the last song of the same title album “Street Story”.
It was summer of 2000 when HY had started their street live performance at Mihama Carnival Park in Chatan.
Every Saturdays and Sundays they played for 30 minutes, 3 times a day. Sometimes they played every single day for a week.
They did all the work by themselves including calling friends to come over and see, just in case no one stops by…
Near the beach, with the shiny light of the sun up in the wider sky, there they sang like
“bring it all the way, with every kind of feelings”
The most attractive aspect in the HY music is the two lead vocals of Hideyuki Shinzato
and Izumi Nakasone. It is characteristically put together in the song “AM11:00”. The song starts with the sound just like the freshness you feel in the morning. Then two vocals appear, and then Shun Naka’s rap follows after them. The whole construction is well put together and you cannot see it in the conventional rock music format.
Songs in this album have variety of types. You can enjoy the contrast of male and female vocal on the “Tootan”,”Sa- Iko”. Different accents make similar style of songs different on “Otokomae” and “Control” “Dreaming”. Cool bouncy beat on “Fukuryu maru”, and “33 number”. Kindness is found through “Kanabun” and “Kumo”. Overwhelming vocals by Izumi on “Anata”, Okinawa local string instrument Shamisen
is featured in the last song “Street Story”.
It is truly HY’s original music; which is only made possible by being in their hometown Okinawa.
Is you are to say the first album “Departure” was a sprout, then the second album was the blooming of the band. It was released on April 16, 2003. First full length album that made the record: No1 in the chart for 4 weeks in a row, and sold over a million copies were a record for a band of an independent label.
It was not for a major record company that put the album in the billboard on the street corners. It was fans in the street corners that found the band and spread it nation wide.
And that is the most beautiful thing we can see in people; wish reaches people.