Ballsack’s J-Pop Midlife Crisis, pt. 15: 山崎ハコ

Starting sometime last year, I started really getting into Japanese music. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I had always thought I hated singing in Japanese. Turns out I don’t! In the night threads for the following week, I’ll write a little about each of my favorite artists that I’ve discovered, and share a streaming album for you to dutifully ignore.

Hako Yamasaki (山崎ハコ) is a Japanese folk singer who started in the mid 70s. She has released a steady stream of records since then, though her sales apparently slumped quite considerably during the whole City Pop thing.

I had no knowledge of her until I was planning on buying an Enka record on Discogs and saw that they also had her 1977 record 『藍色の詩』. After streaming a bit of it, I decided to buy it impulsively. I like it quite a bit.