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Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra (abbreviated to YMO) was a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards, vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums, lead vocals, occasional keyboards) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards, vocals). The group is considered influential and innovative in the field of popular electronic music. They were pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and digital recording technology, and effectively anticipated the "electropop boom" of the 1980s. They are credited with playing a key role in the development of several electronic genres, including synthpop, J-pop, electro, and techno, while exploring subversive sociopolitical themes throughout their career.
The three members were veterans of the music industry before coming together as YMO, and were inspired by eclectic sources, including the electronic music of Isao Tomita and Kraftwerk, Japanese traditional music, arcade games, funk music, and the disco productions of Giorgio Moroder. They released the surprise global hit "Computer Game" in 1978, reaching the UK Top 20 and selling 400,000 copies in the U.S. For their early recordings and performances, the band was often accompanied by programmer Hideki Matsutake. The group released several albums before pausing their activity in 1984. They briefly reunited several times in subsequent decades before Takahashi and Sakamoto's deaths in 2023.
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. The group leader Haruomi Hosono had been using an Ace Tone rhythm machine since early in his career in the early 1970s. Following the break-up of his band Happy End in 1972, Hosono became involved in the recording of several early electronic rock records, including Yōsui Inoue's folk pop rock album Kōri no Sekai (1973) and Osamu Kitajima's progressive psychedelic rock album Benzaiten (1974), both of which utilized synthesizers, electric guitars, electric bass, and in the latter, electronic drums, and rhythm machines. Also around the same time, the band's future "fourth member" Hideki Matsutake was the assistant for the internationally successful electronic musician Isao Tomita. Much of the methods and techniques developed by both Tomita and Matsutake during the early 1970s would later be employed by Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Yukihiro 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 various electronic equipment. The band was named "Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band" as a satire of the idyllic perception of pacific and Hawaiian music America had been obsessed with and in late 1977 they began recording Paraiso, which was released in 1978. The three worked together again for the 1978 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, 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. Thousand Knives was also notable for its early use of the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer music sequencer, with Matsutake as its music programmer for the album.
While Sakamoto was working on Thousand Knives, Hosono began formulating the idea of an instrumental disco band which could have the potential to reach success in non-Japanese-language territories, and invited Tasuo Hayashi of Tin Pan Alley and Hiroshi Sato of Huckleback as participants, but they declined. Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi eventually collaborated again to form the Yellow Magic Orchestra and they began recording their self-titled album at a Shibaura studio in July 1978.
The band's 1978 self-titled album Yellow Magic Orchestra was successful and the studio project grew into a fully fledged touring band and career for its three members. 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. 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.[citation needed]
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 effect similar to that of the Beatles and Merseybeat in 1960s Britain. For some time, YMO was the most popular band in Japan. 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.[citation needed] Legendary English guitarist Bill Nelson, who had disbanded Be-Bop Deluxe and Red Noise to more recently explore Electropop himself, likewise played on YMO's Naughty Boys (1983), its non-vocals variant Naughty Boys Instrumental (1984) and subsequent solo Yukihiro Takahashi projects, before featuring the latter on two of Nelson's own UK based releases.
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Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra (abbreviated to YMO) was a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards, vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums, lead vocals, occasional keyboards) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards, vocals). The group is considered influential and innovative in the field of popular electronic music. They were pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and digital recording technology, and effectively anticipated the "electropop boom" of the 1980s. They are credited with playing a key role in the development of several electronic genres, including synthpop, J-pop, electro, and techno, while exploring subversive sociopolitical themes throughout their career.
The three members were veterans of the music industry before coming together as YMO, and were inspired by eclectic sources, including the electronic music of Isao Tomita and Kraftwerk, Japanese traditional music, arcade games, funk music, and the disco productions of Giorgio Moroder. They released the surprise global hit "Computer Game" in 1978, reaching the UK Top 20 and selling 400,000 copies in the U.S. For their early recordings and performances, the band was often accompanied by programmer Hideki Matsutake. The group released several albums before pausing their activity in 1984. They briefly reunited several times in subsequent decades before Takahashi and Sakamoto's deaths in 2023.
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. The group leader Haruomi Hosono had been using an Ace Tone rhythm machine since early in his career in the early 1970s. Following the break-up of his band Happy End in 1972, Hosono became involved in the recording of several early electronic rock records, including Yōsui Inoue's folk pop rock album Kōri no Sekai (1973) and Osamu Kitajima's progressive psychedelic rock album Benzaiten (1974), both of which utilized synthesizers, electric guitars, electric bass, and in the latter, electronic drums, and rhythm machines. Also around the same time, the band's future "fourth member" Hideki Matsutake was the assistant for the internationally successful electronic musician Isao Tomita. Much of the methods and techniques developed by both Tomita and Matsutake during the early 1970s would later be employed by Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Yukihiro 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 various electronic equipment. The band was named "Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band" as a satire of the idyllic perception of pacific and Hawaiian music America had been obsessed with and in late 1977 they began recording Paraiso, which was released in 1978. The three worked together again for the 1978 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, 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. Thousand Knives was also notable for its early use of the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer music sequencer, with Matsutake as its music programmer for the album.
While Sakamoto was working on Thousand Knives, Hosono began formulating the idea of an instrumental disco band which could have the potential to reach success in non-Japanese-language territories, and invited Tasuo Hayashi of Tin Pan Alley and Hiroshi Sato of Huckleback as participants, but they declined. Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi eventually collaborated again to form the Yellow Magic Orchestra and they began recording their self-titled album at a Shibaura studio in July 1978.
The band's 1978 self-titled album Yellow Magic Orchestra was successful and the studio project grew into a fully fledged touring band and career for its three members. 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. 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.[citation needed]
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 effect similar to that of the Beatles and Merseybeat in 1960s Britain. For some time, YMO was the most popular band in Japan. 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.[citation needed] Legendary English guitarist Bill Nelson, who had disbanded Be-Bop Deluxe and Red Noise to more recently explore Electropop himself, likewise played on YMO's Naughty Boys (1983), its non-vocals variant Naughty Boys Instrumental (1984) and subsequent solo Yukihiro Takahashi projects, before featuring the latter on two of Nelson's own UK based releases.