花

There is ska in the bones of this song — that choppy upstroke guitar rhythm that makes the body want to move sideways, the brass line that cuts through everything with cheerful aggression, the relentless forward bounce. But ORANGE RANGE layer on top of it a kind of chaotic generosity: multiple vocal styles trading off, rapped passages dropping into melodic choruses, the whole thing throwing ideas at the wall with the confidence of a band that knows the wall will catch them. The lyrics are a celebration of someone specific — tender and exuberant in the way that only young people writing about love can be, where the feeling is so large it overflows the form. Released in 2004, it became one of those songs that Japanese culture has attached to moments of communal joy: weddings, graduation ceremonies, the kind of occasions where you need music that does not hedge its bets. The production is busier than it needs to be, and that excess is exactly the point — restraint would betray the emotion. It sounds like a party that started before you arrived and will continue after you leave, and your presence in the middle of it is exactly where you are supposed to be.