Customer Reviews

Early Times: The Best of Love Psychedelico

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When I first heard these guys, I thought they were American. The lyrics are arch, often nonsensically hip, with quite a few of lyrical tribute nods to bands like the Beatles & Zepplin.. About of a third of the time they're in Japanese, which I just assumed was unintelligible English at first.

The band is a boy-girl pair: they met at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo in the late 90's. The guy, Naoki Sato, is the guitarist (and he's good.) The girl, Kumi, sings & pens the lyrics. She spent some time in the States growing up, and it shows in her writing fluency & mastery of English. Altogether, they have a nice alternative sound, clearly influenced by classic 60's & 70's era rock and folk, as well as later alternative rock. They're evidentially huge stars in Japan (where they are nicknamed Delico for short.)

Honestly, they ought to be huge here, too. I don't know why they aren't.. it's a real mystery. If the record companies were good for anything at all, they'd be putting this out there, here, for people to hear. The mystery never dissipates.

Anyhow, my favorite songs here are: Your Song, Everybody Needs Somebody, A Day For You, Everyone Everyone, Rosy.

The one weakness with these guys is that their sound is a bit repetitive.. the tunes tend to sound the same. But they've enough range overall, ultimately, that I feel the album still really works.. the above listed songs certainly stand apart, and out, enough, in my opinion..

This is a GREAT CD that will stay in your car for months and months! Get it; it is an excellent introduction to a band whose music is easily strong enough to get major airplay in the US.

I first heard of Love Psychedelico while reading an article on Japan Today (I don't remember how I came across the article). I decided to sample the music through the Internet and fell in love with the few songs I could listen to through that medium. Unable to locate their tunes on anything like iTunes, I took the plunge and paid 4,100 yen (about $39 U.S.) for the CD. I do not understand any Japanese, but their lyrics shift seemlessly between English and Japanes. Their style of rock is addictive and rarely does a day go by where I don't listen to some of the music off of this cd. 'Last Smile', 'neverland' and 'Free World' are among my current favorite tunes to listen to on my 20 gig iPod.