山下達郎* – Big Wave = ビッグウェイブ

This album is very accessible for western listeners - it is 100% in English and is heavily influenced by Brian Wilson's work on Pet Sounds & Smiley Smile; The Beach Boys.

However, it isn't a great example of what to expect from Yamashita's other albums. It isn't particularly rare either, as over 450,000 pressings were made.

This is just un-believable - Take the best in City Pop, mix it with Brian Wilson level songwriting and get that

It arrived super quickly and it is in great condition! Thank you!

I have a piece of paper within the lyrics sheet saying apologies for the misprint on this, does anyone else have this?

This is the premier Japanese Citypop album in my eyes, and easily the most accessible to English listeners as Tatsuro Yamashita, the "King of Citypop" sings the entire language in perfect English. This album embodies the sunny, upbeat summer feelings equally matched in classic albums like Anri's Timely!! and serves as a perfect continuation of Yamashita's previous album For You. Big Wave sees Yamashita bring back most of the instrumentalists that also played on For You for another summer, driving down the beach jam album. On the A-Side, all tracks are original and written by Yamashita, with English lyrics by Alan O'Day.

Big Wave sees Yamashita managing to encom slick harmonies reminiscent of 60s Summer Pop like the Beach Boys with the beloved early-80s pop production very similar to Hall & Oates Voices and Private Eyes album. The disco-esque rhythm guitar licks, twinkly synths, piano power chords, and saxophone solos. It's as if Japan's "New Music" era managed to freeze the state of production in pop music in 1980 in the United States for a few more years, as this album came out in 1984. By that time, Hall & Oates had moved onto more robotic sounding synths and drum machines on Big Bam Boom. Big Wave however The album itself was created for a movie that apparently documented the life of surfers, however it seems to have been lost to history, much like other great soundtracks attached to forgettable movies. Yuji Ohno's Golden Dog, Earth, Wind, and Fire's That's The Way of the World, and Journey's Dream After Dream.

Yamashita's vocals on Big Wave are flawless, from his outrageously high head voice range displayed on "Jody" and his crooner cheese magic on Your Eyes. To me, the standout track though is "Magic Ways," a catchy track very similar to "Sparkle" from For You, an upbeat rhythm-guitar backed track with the 50s-esque harmony vocals emblematic of other Yamashita produced tracks, such as his wife Mariya Takeuchi's Once Again.

The B-Side is flawless covers of lesser known Beach Boys songs. Yamashita's selection of tracks to cover is done so well, on a playthrough of the album one would forget that Brian Wilson had even written these songs, since Yamashita went out of his way to select deep cuts like Guess I'm Dumb that Yamashita breathes new life and unforgettable harmonies into tracks like Please Let Me Wonder and Darlin' that makes Big Wave sound nothing like a cheap cover album and instead a homage to surfer pop that is fully listenable and fully unique. Darlin' sounds particularly good, as Yamashita remade the track at exactly the right time where the 80s production values make this one sound so much clearer and more energetic than the Beach Boys original did. Big Wave is fully recommended to anyone looking to get into citypop but doesn't know where to begin. Be warned though, there is much more addictive music where this came from!