Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor (1979, Japan)

[This guest post was written by wbwolf about number 85 on The List. The album was submitted by avi_miller. Note: Japanese names follow Japanese order, family name followed by given name.]

If there is any Japanese artist that belongs in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, it’s Yellow Magic Orchestra. They were one of the bands that helped shape synth-pop. Along with Kraftwerk, they were cited by Afrika Bambaataa as one of the early influences on hip-hop and electro. And the band started as a one off.

In the mid-1970s, Hosono Haruomi (formerly in Happy End), put out a series of solo albums that explored orientalist themes, both from within Japan and from outside. Hosono, along with his Tin Pan Alley production group, would work with top studio musicians in Japan. In 1978, Hosono put out Paraiso, which was credited to Hosono Haruomi & The Yellow Magic Band. One track of that album, “Femme Fatale” features Takahashi Yukihiro, former drummer for Sadistic Mika Band and Sakamoto Ryuichi, a classically trained keyboard player and arranger. All three had become interested in electronics and fusing them with Asian melodies. Over the course of 1977 and 1978, they worked on a number of projects along a similar theme: Pacific, along with Suzuki Shigeru (Tin Pan Alley) and Yamashita Tatsuro, based around the theme of the ocean; and Cochin Moon, fusing Indian ragas and electronic music.

Around the time Sakamoto was working on his own solo debut album, Hosono had the idea to do a one off studio project aiming at an overseas market. Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi recorded Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. In early 1979, the first album was remixed and released internationally. The success of the band both in Japan and overseas moved them out of the studio and into a full fledged band.

Ironically, the follow up Solid State Survivor was not released internationally until much later. Tracks from the album would be released on the international version of X∞Multiplies, a 1980 mini-album collaboration with comedy group Snakeman Show. But upon release in Japan, Solid State Survivor was a huge hit, selling over a million copies (a rare feat in the country), along with two top 20 singles.

The cover sets the tone of the album, with Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi dressed in red jumpsuits, seated around a table with two mannequins. The rear sleeve has them carrying the mannequins away from the table. There is a bit of tongue in cheek here.

The theme of the album is still Japan, but Japan of the present and near future. The album is divided into two pieces. Side A is instrumentals, leading with “Technopolis”, an ode to Tokyo. In a way, it was anticipating the cyberpunk themes of a technically advanced Tokyo being a major center. “Absolute Ego Dance” features wordless vocals by Sandii, who would go onto her own international career with Sandii & The Sunsetz. “Rydeen” is one of the most famous YMO songs, covered numerous times.

Side B is vocals. Lyrics are all in English, written by Chris Mosdell, an English writer based in Tokyo. The side leads off with “Behind The Mask”. Sung using a vocoder, the lyrics use the imagery of a Noh mask to evoke the facelessness of modern society. This song was released as a single in the US and UK. Michael Jackson would write his own lyrics to the song, and it was intended to be included on Thriller, but royalty payments couldn’t be agreed upon, so it was dropped. Greg Phillinganes and Eric Clapton would each record Michael Jackson’s version in the 1980s. Jackson’s recording would finally surface on his 2010 posthumous album.

Next is a robotic take on “Daytripper”. Much like Devo’s version of “Satisfaction” or Flying Lizard’s “Money”, it uses synthesizers and a drum machine to create a choppy sound. “Insomniac”, again using a vocoder and again touches on the isolation, this time late at night. Finally, the album closes with the title track “Solid State Survivor”. Despite the more uptempo music, the lyrics have a sense of dread, underscoring the isolation and facelessness of modern society.

Overall, this album is a great place to start with Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Japanese popular music in general. YMO would continue as a band until 1984, but all continued to do solo work and would occasionally collaborate with each other. Sakamoto would go on to be an Oscar winning composer. YMO, both as a group and members individually, had a major influence on Japanese popular music that is becoming more appreciated around the world. This album is but one example of that rich tradition worthy of exploration.

• Songwhip: Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor
• Discogs: Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor

[Alt text for accompanying image: The album artwork is a photo of the three band members wearing red jumpsuits, seated around a table with two mannequins, one also wearing a red jumpsuit and another wearing a see-through blue dress. The background is yellow, with the band name (just “Yellow Magic”) in grey font at the top and the album name in smaller font along the bottom.]

#1001OtherAlbums #1970s #electro #HaruomiHosono #Japan #RyuichiSakamoto #synthpop #YellowMagicOrchestra #YukihiroTakahashi

6 Degrees of Separation, Part 1

KEXP, a Seattle-based radio station I listen to every work day, will periodically do an entire day (or more) of “6 Degrees of Separation” programming, where every DJ comes up with their playlist on the fly, connecting each song by some thread – a shared band member/writer/producer/studio, one artist covering the other’s song, a previous/future collaboration, etc. Each DJ will often try to reach a particular artist by the end of their show, and the next DJ has to continue from where the previous DJ left off.

If you follow me on Mastodon, you may have seen that I was curious if we could play the 6 Degrees game with The List. My initial aim was to simply connect 6 albums from The List, starting with the last album we had a spotlight on (with no particular album as an end goal), but that was easy enough so I kept going. One of The List contributors also came up with a set, so I incorporated those into what I came up with and kept going some more. So far, we’ve connected 50ish albums from The List in a row.

I think each set provides a nice multi-day playlist (and, for a mega nerd like myself, following these trails is quite a bit of fun), so I wanted to share them here, one set at a time. And because (spoilers!) Prince features heavily in the last few sets, we’re going to time it so the last set is on the anniversary of him leaving us (April 21), and pick out some other fun Prince-connections along the way.

Okay, here we go…

6 Degrees of Separation: Yellow Magic Orchestra to Medicine Singers

Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor (list number 85)
>> One of the band members of YMO was…

Ryuichi Sakamoto – Async (901)
…Ryuichi Sakamoto, who acted in the film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence alongside…

David Bowie – Low (537)
…David Bowie, who recruited Adrian Belew for the Isolar II (i.e., Low/Heroes) tour (and the live album Stage, then Lodger, and, later, the Sound+Vision tour). Following Lodger, Belew recorded guitar solos and played in the live band for…

Talking Heads – Remain In Light (946)
…this album by Talking Heads, whose David Byrne later collaborated with St. Vincent, who is on…

Swans – To Be Kind (646)
…this album by Swans, whose Thor Harris and Christopher Pravdica are on…

Medicine Singers – Medicine Singers (972)
…this album by Medicine Singers. <<

Prince 6

Though we don’t have a Prince album in today’s list, here are some fun connections the above artists have to The Purple One:

• Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “You Do Me” (Youtube), from the international release of his 1989 album Beauty, features Jill Jones, who performed/collaborated with Prince in many of his projects (including the 1999 album, Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge films, and the Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6 side-projects) and was on his Paisley Park Records label.
• Ingrid Chavez, who was on Prince’s Lovesexy album, was originally on the Paisley Park label, and acted alongside Prince in Graffiti Bridge, also performed on Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 1991 album Heartbeat.
• According to the forums on prince.org, there’s a bootleg recording of a Prince rehearsal session called 1999 Revisited where Prince throws in some tweaked Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” lyrics into his “D.M.S.R.” song.
• In 2018, David Byrne showed up at a tiki-karaoke bar in Portland and sang “When Doves Cry” (Youtube).
• In Tom Hagler’s 2021 book We Could Be…Bowie and His Heroes, there’s a brief story about the only time Prince and David Bowie met. In 1987, after Bowie played a show in Minneapolis, Prince invited him back to Paisley Park for a party. Prince put on an album he had just recently written but not yet released, The Black Album, and everyone including Bowie and his band danced to and enjoyed the record. (Prince later said that one of the reasons why he decided to pull the album was because he didn’t like a comment that someone else who was also there that night said about the album, even though it was a compliment.)
• After Bowie died, while on his Piano & A Microphone Tour, Prince incorporated a cover of “Heroes” into a few of his shows.

Tune in on Thursday for Part 2, to see how we get from Medicine Singers to R.E.M.!

#1001OtherAlbums #6DegreesOfSeparation #AdrianBelew #ChristopherPravdica #DavidBowie #DavidByrne #MedicineSingers #Prince #RyuichiSakamoto #StVincent #Swans #TalkingHeads #ThorHarris

1001 Other Albums

2024-04-07 16:00:00

Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor (1979, Japan)

[This guest post was written by wbwolf about number 85 on The List. The album was submitted by avi_miller. Note: Japanese names follow Japanese order, family name followed by given name.]

If there is any Japanese artist that belongs in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, it’s Yellow Magic Orchestra. They were one of the bands that helped shape synth-pop. Along with Kraftwerk, they were cited by Afrika Bambaataa as one of the early influences on hip-hop and electro. And the band started as a one off.

In the mid-1970s, Hosono Haruomi (formerly in Happy End), put out a series of solo albums that explored orientalist themes, both from within Japan and from outside. Hosono, along with his Tin Pan Alley production group, would work with top studio musicians in Japan. In 1978, Hosono put out Paraiso, which was credited to Hosono Haruomi & The Yellow Magic Band. One track of that album, “Femme Fatale” features Takahashi Yukihiro, former drummer for Sadistic Mika Band and Sakamoto Ryuichi, a classically trained keyboard player and arranger. All three had become interested in electronics and fusing them with Asian melodies. Over the course of 1977 and 1978, they worked on a number of projects along a similar theme: Pacific, along with Suzuki Shigeru (Tin Pan Alley) and Yamashita Tatsuro, based around the theme of the ocean; and Cochin Moon, fusing Indian ragas and electronic music.

Around the time Sakamoto was working on his own solo debut album, Hosono had the idea to do a one off studio project aiming at an overseas market. Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi recorded Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. In early 1979, the first album was remixed and released internationally. The success of the band both in Japan and overseas moved them out of the studio and into a full fledged band.

Ironically, the follow up Solid State Survivor was not released internationally until much later. Tracks from the album would be released on the international version of X∞Multiplies, a 1980 mini-album collaboration with comedy group Snakeman Show. But upon release in Japan, Solid State Survivor was a huge hit, selling over a million copies (a rare feat in the country), along with two top 20 singles.

The cover sets the tone of the album, with Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi dressed in red jumpsuits, seated around a table with two mannequins. The rear sleeve has them carrying the mannequins away from the table. There is a bit of tongue in cheek here.

The theme of the album is still Japan, but Japan of the present and near future. The album is divided into two pieces. Side A is instrumentals, leading with “Technopolis”, an ode to Tokyo. In a way, it was anticipating the cyberpunk themes of a technically advanced Tokyo being a major center. “Absolute Ego Dance” features wordless vocals by Sandii, who would go onto her own international career with Sandii & The Sunsetz. “Rydeen” is one of the most famous YMO songs, covered numerous times.

Side B is vocals. Lyrics are all in English, written by Chris Mosdell, an English writer based in Tokyo. The side leads off with “Behind The Mask”. Sung using a vocoder, the lyrics use the imagery of a Noh mask to evoke the facelessness of modern society. This song was released as a single in the US and UK. Michael Jackson would write his own lyrics to the song, and it was intended to be included on Thriller, but royalty payments couldn’t be agreed upon, so it was dropped. Greg Phillinganes and Eric Clapton would each record Michael Jackson’s version in the 1980s. Jackson’s recording would finally surface on his 2010 posthumous album.

Next is a robotic take on “Daytripper”. Much like Devo’s version of “Satisfaction” or Flying Lizard’s “Money”, it uses synthesizers and a drum machine to create a choppy sound. “Insomniac”, again using a vocoder and again touches on the isolation, this time late at night. Finally, the album closes with the title track “Solid State Survivor”. Despite the more uptempo music, the lyrics have a sense of dread, underscoring the isolation and facelessness of modern society.

Overall, this album is a great place to start with Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Japanese popular music in general. YMO would continue as a band until 1984, but all continued to do solo work and would occasionally collaborate with each other. Sakamoto would go on to be an Oscar winning composer. YMO, both as a group and members individually, had a major influence on Japanese popular music that is becoming more appreciated around the world. This album is but one example of that rich tradition worthy of exploration.

• Songwhip: Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor
• Discogs: Yellow Magic Orchestra – Solid State Survivor

[Alt text for accompanying image: The album artwork is a photo of the three band members wearing red jumpsuits, seated around a table with two mannequins, one also wearing a red jumpsuit and another wearing a see-through blue dress. The background is yellow, with the band name (just “Yellow Magic”) in grey font at the top and the album name in smaller font along the bottom.]

#1001OtherAlbums #1970s #electro #HaruomiHosono #Japan #RyuichiSakamoto #synthpop #YellowMagicOrchestra #YukihiroTakahashi

Solid State Survivor by YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA

Listen to "Solid State Survivor" by YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA on any music platform - Free smart music links by Songwhip

^{YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA (Songwhip)}