Yellow Magic Orchestra

Yellow Magic Orchestra

Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) is a Japanese electronic music band formed in 1978, consisting of principal members Haruomi Hosono (bass), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums and lead vocals) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards and vocals). The group was previously known as the "Yellow Magic Band" in 1977.

The band is known for their innovations in popular electronic music, and as forerunners of various electronic genres such as electropop/technopop, synthpop, electro music, cyberpunk music, J-pop, ambient house music, and electronica. Their influence is evident across many genres of popular electronic music including hip hop, electronic dance, chiptune, video game music, techno, acid house, and rave, to ambient music, pop, rock, and melodic music.

History

Early years and formation (1976-1978)

See also: Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi, and Yellow Magic Orchestra (album)

Prior to the group's formation, Sakamoto had been experimenting with electronic music equipment at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, which he entered in 1970, including synthesizers such as the Buchla, Moog, and ARP. At around the same time, Hosono had been involved in the recording of several early electronic rock records, including Inoue Yousui's folk pop rock album Ice World (1973) and Osamu Kitajima's progressive psychadelic rock album Benzaiten (1974), both of which utilized synthesizers, electric guitars, electric bass, and in the latter, drum machines. Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band. Hosono invited both to work on his exotica-flavoured album Paraiso, which included electronic songs produced using the Yamaha CS-80 polyphonic synthesizer and ARP Odyssey synthesizer. The band was named "Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band" and, having been recorded in late 1977, Paraiso was released in early 1978. The three worked together again for the 1978 electronic album Pacific, which included an early version of the song "Cosmic Surfin".

Hosono and Sakamoto also worked together alongside Hideki Matsutake in early 1978 for Hosono's experimental "electro-exotica" fusion album Cochin Moon, which fused electronic music with Indian music (reminiscent of Ravi Shankar and Bollywood music), including an early "synth raga" song "Hum Ghar Sajan". The same year, Sakamoto released his own solo album, The Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto, experimenting with a similar fusion between electronic music and traditional Japanese music in early 1978. Hosono also contributed to one of Sakamoto's songs, "Thousand Knives", in the album. Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi eventually collaborated again to form the Yellow Magic Orchestra later that year.

The band was initially conceived as a one-off studio project by Hosono, the other two members being recruited session musicians—the idea was to produce an album fusing orientalist exotica with modern electronics, as a subversion of Orientalism and exoticization, while exploring similar themes such as Asianness. The album would eventually be called Yellow Magic Orchestra, as a satire of Japan's obsession with black magic at the time. The album featured the use of computer technology (along with synthesizers) which, according to Billboard, allowed the group to create a new sound that was not possible until then.

The band's 1978 self-titled album Yellow Magic Orchestra, with its cutting-edge production, was very popular, and the studio project grew into a fully fledged touring band and career for its three members. Following the release of the album Yellow Magic Orchestra, a live date at the Roppongi Pit Inn was seen by executives of A&M Records of the USA who were in the process of setting up a partnership deal with Alfa Records. This led to the YMO being offered an international deal, at which point (early 1979) the three members decided the group would be given priority over their solo careers. The most popular international hit from the album was "Firecracker", which would be released as a single the following year and again as "Computer Game", which became a success in the United States and Europe.

National and international success (1978-1983)

See also: Yellow Magic Orchestra (album), Solid State Survivor, Public Pressure, X∞Multiplies, BGM (album), Technodelic, Naughty Boys, and Service (album)

Following an advertising deal with Fuji Cassette, the group sparked a boom in the popularity of electronic pop music, called "Technopop" in Japan, where they had an impact similar to that of The Beatles and Merseybeat in 1960s Britain. For some time, YMO was the most popular band in Japan. A testament to the influence of YMO on fashion is how many middle-aged Japanese businessmen still have the "Techno cut" haircut, modeled after the group. Successful solo act Akiko Yano (later married to Sakamoto) joined the band for its live performances in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but did not participate in the studio recordings. On the other hand, the YMO trio contributed to her own albums and became part of her live band, during these same years.

Making abundant use of new synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers and digital recording technology as it became available, as well as utilizing cyberpunk-ish lyrics sung mostly in English, they extended their popularity and influence beyond Japan. While their contemporaries in Düsseldorf and Detroit were using synthesizer technology to create bleak dystopian music, YMO set themselves apart by using synthesizer technology to create "joyous and liberating" music, which Sakamoto regards as "a Japanese thing" and has compared to a bento box.

Solid State Survivor, released in 1979, was YMO's pinnacle recording in Japan, winning the 1980 Best Album Award in the Japan Record Awards. It featured English lyrics by Chris Mosdell, whose sci-fi themes often depicted a human condition alienated by dystopic futures, much like the emerging cyberpunk movement in fiction at that time. The album's major single, and one of the band's biggest international hits, was "Behind the Mask", which YMO had first produced in 1978 for a Seiko quartz wristwatch commercial, and then for Solid State Survivor with lyrics penned by Chris Mosdell. The song was later revised by Michael Jackson, who added new lyrics in the early 1980s. Jackson's version was never released until his first posthumous album, Michael, though his additional lyrics were included in later cover versions of the song by Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton, and Ryuichi Sakamoto himself in his 1986 solo release Media Bahn Live.

Their second album Solid State Survivor went on to sell over 2 million records worldwide. By 1980, YMO had become the most popular group in Japan, where they were performing to sold out crowds. Their first live album Public Pressure set a record in Japan, topping the charts and selling 250,000 copies within two weeks, while their next studio album X∞Multiplies had 200,000 pre-orders before release. The same year, their albums Solid State Survivor and X∞Multiplies held the top two spots on the Oricon charts for seven consecutive weeks, making YMO the only band in Japanese chart history to achieve this feat.

They also had similar success abroad, performing to sold-out crowds during tours in the United States and Europe. The single "Computer Game" had sold 400,000 copies in the United States and reached #17 in the UK Charts. The group also performed "Firecracker" and "Tighten Up" live on the Soul Train television show. At around the same time, the 1980 song "Riot in Lagos" by YMO member Sakamoto pioneered the beats and sounds of electro music. The band was particularly popular with the emerging hip hop community, which appreciated the group's electronic sounds, and in the Bronx where "Firecracker" was a success and sampled in the famous Death Mix (1983) by Afrika Bambaataa. Meanwhile in Japan, YMO remained the best-selling music act there up until 1982.

Breakup and brief reunion (1984-1993)

See also: After Service, Faker Holic, and Technodon

The band had stopped working as a group by 1984, after the release of their musical motion picture Propaganda, the three members returning to their solo careers. The group were careful to avoid saying they had "split up", preferring to use the Japanese phrase meaning "spreading out" (散開, sankai), and in fact the trio continued to play on each other's recordings and made guest appearances at live shows. Takahashi, in particular, would play YMO material in his concerts and as "lead singer" was arguably best placed to do so. Meanwhile, Sakamoto would gain international success for his work as a solo artist, actor, and film composer, winning Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe awards.

The trio would eventually release a one-off reunion album, Technodon, and credited it to 'NOT YMO' (YMO crossed out with a calligraphy X) or YMO in 1993. Instead of traditional vocals, about half of it features field audio recordings and samples of authors and scientists reading their work. During their brief reunion in the early 1990s, they continued to experiment with new styles of electronic music, playing an instrumental role in the techno and acid house movements of the era.

Post-breakup and reformation (1994-present)

See also: Sketch Show (band), Rescue / Rydeen 79/07, The City of Light / Tokyo Town Pages, and LONDONYMO - Yellow Magic Orchestra Live in London 15/6 08

The early 2000s saw Hosono & Takahashi reunited in a project called Sketch Show. On a number of occasions Ryuichi Sakamoto has joined in on Sketch Show performances and recording sessions. He later proposed they rename the group Human Audio Sponge when he participates. Barcelona performance at Sonar festival and Wild Sketch Show DVDs chronicle these reunions, and include a tongue-in-cheek Japanese text only history of the group that spans to 2036.

The band have reunited in 2007 for an advertising campaign for Kirin Lager which lampooned their longevity and charted No.1 on various Japanese digital download charts (including iTunes Store chart) with the song "Rydeen 79/07", released on Sakamoto's new label commmons. Recently performing live as Human Audio Sponge; Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi did a live performance together as Yellow Magic Orchestra for the Live Earth, Kyoto event on July 7, 2007, which raised money and awareness of a "climate in crisis."

In August 2007, the band once again reformed, taking the name HASYMO or HAS/YMO, combining the names of Human Audio Sponge and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Their first single under this name, "Rescue", was written for the film Appleseed EX Machina. They released a new two song single titled "The City of Light/Tokyo Town Pages" on August 6, 2008. HASYMO played two live concerts in Europe in the summer of 2008, one at the Royal Festival Hall, London on 15 June, as part of the Meltdown festival of music curated by Massive Attack and another in Gijon, Spain on the 19th. Although the primary YMO members (Yukihiro Takahashi, Haruomi Hosono, and Ryuichi Sakamoto) are effectively known as HASYMO and played both these concerts, these concerts were billed simply as "YMO" but featured only 4 YMO songs in each concert while the rest of the concert featured Sketch Show, HASYMO music and member's solo works.

In August 2009, the band played the World Happiness festival in Japan, featuring many Japanese artists. The band closed the night, and confirmed that "Yellow Magic Orchestra" is their official name, dropping the HASYMO title. They opened with a cover of "Hello, Goodbye" and performed old YMO songs along with their newer songs. In May 2010, Keane released a new EP entitled Night Train (EP) which includes a cover of "You've Got to Help Yourself", featuring MC Tigarah.

In August 2010, YMO once again closed their World Happiness festival. They added classic songs from their back catalog into their set list. They also covered "Hello, Goodbye" and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)". In January 2011, KCRW announced for their World Festival concert series that Yellow Magic Orchestra will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 26, 2011. It was announced in February that YMO will perform at the Fuji Rock festival in July and the World Happiness festival 2011 on 7 August.

Legacy

YMO have been described as "the most adventurous and influential electro-techno-dance technicians the world has produced" and that without them, "today's music would still sound like yesterday's music." They have also been described as the most influential innovators of electronic music alongside their contemporaries Kraftwerk. YMO were pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and digital recording technology, in a time when these technologies were still seen as novelties. The band is regarded as being "ahead of their time," for anticipating the global trend towards drum machines and sampling, for having anticipated the "electropop boom" of the 1980s, their "pro-technological viewpoint," and their use of video game sounds and bleeps (as in 1978's "Computer Game", for example) which had a particularly big influence on 1980s hip hop music. Generally, the band are highly regarded as pioneers of popular electronic music, and continue to be remixed and sampled by modern artists, ranging from electronica acts Yamantaka Eye and LFO, pioneering jungle band 4hero, electrolatino artist Senor Coconut, and ambient house pioneers The Orb and 808 State, to electronic dance groups Orbital and The Human League, hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, and mainstream pop musicians such as Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton, Mariah Carey, and Jennifer Lopez.

In 1980, Yellow Magic Orchestra was the first band to utilize the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, one of the first programmable drum machines, which since the mid-1980s has been used in more hit records than any other drum machine.

YMO utilized computer technology (together with synthesizers) for their self-titled album in 1978, to produce a new sound that was not possible until then. As a result, they were credited at the time for having "ushered in the age of the computer programmer as rock star." Yellow Magic Orchestra was also the first computer-themed music album, predating Kraftwerk's Computer World (1981) by several years. YMO's approach to sampling music was a precursor to the contemporary approach to constructing music by cutting fragments of sounds and looping them using computer technology. Their 1978 hit "Computer Game / Firecracker", for example, sampled sounds from Martin Denny's 1959 exotica melody "Firecracker" and arcade game sounds from Space Invaders and Circus.

They were also the first band to utilize the Roland TR-808, one of the first and most influential programmable drum machines, as soon as it was released in 1980. In addition to programmability, the TR-808 featured various unique artificial percussion sounds: a deep bass kick drum, "tinny handclap sounds," “the ticky snare, the tishy hi-hats (open and closed) and the spacey cowbell.” YMO fully utilized and demonstrated the TR-808 in their music, paving the way for its mainstream popularity several years later, after which it would be used for more hit records than any other drum machine and continue to be widely used through to the present day.

While their contemporaries in Düsseldorf, and later Detroit, were using synthesizer technology to create bleak dystopian music, YMO introduced a more "joyous and liberating" approach to electronic music. In contrast to Kraftwerk's "robot pop" which was more minimalistic and statuesque, YMO's template for electronic pop was less minimalistic and made more varying use of synthesizer lines, often producing "fun-loving and breezy" music. The band also expanded the scope of electronic music by drawing from a wider range of influences, including Japanese electronic music (such as Isao Tomita), European electronic music (such as Kraftwerk), exotica (such as Martin Denny), traditional Japanese music, Indian music (such as Ravi Shankar and Bollywood music), disco, video game samples (such as Space Invaders), American rap, British pop rock (such as The Beatles), and Caribbean ska. YMO are regarded by many as pioneers of synthpop, and their success with music technology encouraged many others, with their influence strongly felt in the British electronic scene of the early 1980s in particular, influencing various later synthpop acts such as Ultravox, John Foxx, Gary Numan, and Duran Duran, as well as Todd Rundgren and Eric Clapton. The emergence of synthpop is considered to be "perhaps the single most significant event in melodic music since Mersey-beat" and its influence can still be seen in contemporary rock and pop music. They also influenced the New Romantic movement, including British bands Duran Duran and Japan, whose member Steve Jansen was influenced by drummer Takahashi, while another member David Sylvian was influenced by Sakamoto, who would later collaborate with Sylvian. YMO also popularized a style of live performance that eschewed human movement in favour of electronics such as rhythm boxes and samplers.

The 1978 song "Behind the Mask" was an international hit covered by various later artists, most famously Michael Jackson. Alongside Quincy Jones, Jackson produced a slightly more dance-funk version of the techno classic with additional lyrics, originally intended for his best-selling 1982 album Thriller. Despite the approval of songwriter Sakamoto and lyricist Chris Mosdell, it was eventually removed from the album due to legal issues with YMO's management. Nevertheless, various cover versions were later performed by Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton, Orbital, and The Human League, among others, before Jackson's cover version eventually appeared on the posthumous Michael album in 2010. The 1979 Solid State Survivor album also included several early computerized synth rock songs, including a mechanized cover version of "Day Tripper" by The Beatles.

The 1980 song "Multiplies" was an early experiment in electronic ska. The beats and sounds of electro music were pioneered by Sakamoto's 1980 song "Riot in Lagos", which was later included in Playgroup's compilation album Kings of Electro (2007), alongside later electro classics such as Hashim's "Al-Nafyish" (1983). "Rap Phenomena" from YMO's 1981 album BGM was an early attempt at electronic rap. The band was popular with the emerging hip hop community, which appreciated the group's new electronic sounds, and in the Bronx where "Firecracker" was a success and sampled in the famous Death Mix by Afrika Bambaataa, a hip hop pioneer who credited YMO as an inspiration and once remarked that YMO invented hip hop music (in a half-joking manner). Afrika Bambaataa's influential song "Planet Rock" was partly inspired by YMO. The "terse videogame-funk" sounds of YMO's "Computer Game" would have a strong influence on the emerging electro and hip hop genres. Sakamoto's "Riot in Lagos" was cited by Kurtis Mantronik as a major influence on his early electro hip hop group Mantronix. "Computer Game / Firecracker" was sampled in a number of other later songs, including 2 Live Crew's "Mega-Mixx II" (1988), Warp's "Testone" (1990), De La Soul's "Funky Towel" (for the 1996 film Joe's Apartment), Jennifer Lopez's worldwide hit "I'm Real" (2001), and the original unreleased version of Mariah Carey's "Loverboy" (2001).

YMO also had an impact on techno music, including its pioneers Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May. YMO's early music has been described as "proto-techno" and they had used the term "techno" for several songs such as "Technopolis" (1979); the song's tribute to Tokyo as an electronic mecca also foreshadowed the concepts that Atkins and Rick Davis would later have with the group Cybotron. By the 1990s, YMO were also frequently cited as pioneers of ambient house music, impacting later ambient house pioneers such as The Orb and 808 State. This resulted in the release of the tribute remix album Yellow Magic Orchestra: Hi-Tech/No Crime in 1993, by leading house and techno musicians at the time, including The Orb and 808 State. The music YMO produced during their comeback in the early 1990s also played an instrumental role in the techno and acid house movements towards the end of the 20th century. The band's use of oriental musical scales and video game sounds has continued to be an influence on 21st-century electronica acts such as Dizzee Rascal and Kieran Hebden. In 2006, Senor Coconut paid tribute to the band with his Yellow Fever! album.

The band has also been very influential in its homeland Japan, where they had become more popular than The Beatles during the late 1970s and 1980s. Their albums Solid State Survivor and X∞Multiplies held the top two spots on the Oricon charts for seven consecutive weeks in 1980, making YMO the only band in Japanese chart history to achieve this feat. Young fans of their music during this period became known as the "YMO Generation" (YMO世代, YMO Sedai). The band had a significant impact on Japanese pop music, which started becoming increasingly dominated by electronic and computer music due to YMO's influence. YMO were one of the most important acts in Japan's "New Music" movement and paved the way for the emergence of the J-pop genre in the 1980s. In HMV Japan's list of top 100 Japanese musicians of all time, YMO were voted second place, behind only Southern All Stars, a pop-rock band who remain largely unknown outside of Japan. YMO also influenced many video game composers and had a major impact on the sounds used in much of the chiptune and video game music produced during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. As a result, several video game composers, including Shinji Hosoe and Nobuyoshi Sano, formed a parody band called "Oriental Magnetic Yellow" (OMY) in 1994, producing parody cover versions of various YMO records. Various cover versions of "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" (1983) have also been produced by other artists, including The Human League in 1993 ("YMO Versus The Human League") and Asako Toki in 2006. In 2009, a cover of "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" was used as the ending theme song for the anime series Maria Holic, sung by Asami Sanada, Marina Inoue, and Yū Kobayashi, the voice actresses of the main characters.

Discography

Yellow Magic Orchestra discography
Studio albums	9
Live albums	13
Compilation albums	6
Singles	23

Studio albums and variations

• 1978 Yellow Magic Orchestra — Japan #17, US #81
• 1979 Solid State Survivor — Japan #1
• 1980 ×∞ Multiplies (a.k.a Zoshoku) — Japan #1, US #177
• 1981 BGM — Japan #2
• 1981 Technodelic — Japan #4
• 1983 Naughty Boys — Japan #1
• 1983 Naughty Boys Instrumental — Japan #18
• 1983 Service — Japan #5
• 1993 Technodon — Japan #2

Live albums

• 1980 Public Pressure — Japan #1
• 1984 After Service — Japan #2
• 1991 Faker Holic (Transatlantic Tour 1979) — Japan #50
• 1992 Complete Service (mixed by Brian Eno) — Japan #37
• 1993 Technodon Live — Japan #12
• 1993 Live At The Budokan 1980 — Japan #87
• 1993 Live At Kinokuniya Hall 1978 — Japan #55
• 1995 Winter Live 1981
• 1996 World Tour 1980 — Japan #59
• 1997 Live At The Greek Theatre 1979
• 2008 Euymo — Yellow Magic Orchestra Live in London + Gijon 2008
• 2008 LONDONYMO - Yellow Magic Orchestra Live in London 15/6 08
• 2008 Gijonymo — Yellow Magic Orchestra Live in Gijon 19/6 08

Compilation albums

• 1984 Sealed
• 1992 Technobible
• 1992 Kyoretsu Na Rhythm
• 2000 YMO Go Home! : The Best of Yellow Magic Orchestra, (compiled by Haruomi Hosono)
• 2001 One More YMO: The Best of YMO Live (compiled by Yukihiro Takahashi)
• 2003 UC YMO: Ultimate Collection of Yellow Magic Orchestra (compiled by Ryuichi Sakamoto)

Remix albums

• 1992 Hi-tech/No Crime (Yellow Magic Orchestra Reconstructed) (UK compilation of remixes by British artists)
• 2000 YMO Remixes Technopolis 2000-00 (Japanese compilation of remixes by Japanese artists)

Original singles

• "Firecracker" (1979, US)
• "Yellow Magic" (Tong Poo) (1979, UK)
• "Technopolis" (1979, Japan) — Japan #9
• "La Femme Chinoise" (1979, UK) (Lyrics: Chris Mosdell)
• "Computer Game" (1980, UK, Italy, Spain, US) — UK #17, US #60
• "Riot in Lagos" (1980, Japan, US, UK, Germany)
• "Rydeen" (1980, Japan; 1982, UK) — Japan #15
• "Behind the Mask" (1980, UK, US, Italy) (Lyrics: Chris Mosdell)
• "Nice Age" (1980, UK, the Netherlands) (Lyrics: Chris Mosdell)
• "Tighten Up (Japanese Gentlemen Stand Up Please)" (cover version of Archie Bell & the Drells hit; 1980, US, Japan; 1981, UK) — Japan #43
• "Cue" (1981, Japan)
• "Mass" (1981, Japan)
• "Taiso" (1982, Australia, Japan)
• "Pure Jam" (1982, Spain)
• "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" (1983, Japan) — Japan #2
• "Kageki na Shukujo" (1983, Japan) — Japan #15
• "Ishin Denshin (You've Got To Help Yourself)" (1983, Japan) — Japan #23
• "Every Time I Look Around (I Hear The Madmen Call)" (1983, Holland)
• Reconstructions EP (1992, UK)
• "Pocketful of Rainbows" (1993, Japan) — Japan #13
• "Be A Superman" (1993, Japan) — Japan #76
• "Rescue / Rydeen 79/07" (2007, Japan) — Digital download release: 10 March 2007, CD release: 22 August 2007
• "The City of Light / Tokyo Town Pages" (2008, Japan)
• "Good Morning, Good Night" (2009, Japan) — by HASYMO

See also

• Sketch Show (Takahashi & Hosono)
• Sadistic Mika Band (Takahashi & Mosdell)
• Happy End (band) (Hosono)
• Haruomi Hosono
• Ryuichi Sakamoto
• Yukihiro Takahashi
• Hideki Matsutake
• Chris Mosdell
• Akiko Yano

External links

• YMO Template:Ja icon
• Official MySpace website