RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

I got a whole Takahashi album off YouTube and it is smooth, chic 80's excellence. I don't have the link but you can find it easily enough.

ymo and the beatles aren't really good correlates, b/c the members of YMO (particularly hosono) had done a lot of great stuff before YMO even existed. more like the faces or something.

btw hosono's work as a performer and producer is kind of inexhaustible. i feel like every week i find some new album that's in the "hosono axis" that i can't stop playing. wtf is with this dude?

@idunno not the point. not trying to come up with analogies, it's just a simple question: what (standard band-sized) band has ever put out more quality stuff, under its own banner and those of its members' solo careers/side projects/outside collaborations, than YMO?

before/after, doesn't matter.

oh, i see.

what about fairport convention?

idk if this marks me a philistine or what, but i've never really scoped them out. best place to start?

also if anyone here wants to reup the various YMO-related bootlegs that've been floated itt at various intervals...plz...

I guess the self titled debut is a good place to begin. They start out as a kinda exuberant, exotic disco fantasia made with 70s electronics and as they progress it gets more arty and sophisticated but holding onto their explorative poppy edge.

Maybe S_T>BGM>Solid State Survivor>Technodelic>Naughty Boys>x∞Multiplies>Service>Technodon, I'm sure people will chime in with a different scheme but they are all worthy of attention.

If you ask me Solid State Survivor is the best starting point, it's got some of their best-known material and it's the closest to the "Japanese Kraftwerk" tag that they always seem to get. They don't really have an LP that represents them as a whole, they changed directions so fast that they were different nearly every time out. The first five in the list that MaresNest posted are all absolute essentials. Muliplies is great too (and hilarious!) but you have to be careful to not get the US version (which has 5 songs from SSS). Service I never warmed to, even without the comedy bits. Technodon is kind of a dud though I do like the live album they came out with after. Even though it's not a YMO reunion proper, Sketch Show with Hosono and Takahashi is really good too, particularly Loophole which I still listen to a lot.

By the way, just to add to the above conversation, even more incredible about these guys is that they were putting out great solo albums even as YMO was running at an album-a-year pace. Sakamoto did B-2 Unit, Left Handed Dream, and the Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence soundtrack, and Takahashi was a pop star in his own right with the Murdered by the Music, Neuromantic, and What, Me Worry? albums. Hosono only has the (great) Philharmony album but he also was producing an insane amount of material for other artists and running the YEN label with Takahashi. Not to mention how much these three guys were touring, I really don't know how they did it all

great summary, frogbs. my favorite YMO started with SSS, then BGM, then Naughty Boys, currently Technodelic. "They don't really have an LP that represents them as a whole, they changed directions so fast that they were different nearly every time out." is really true. The first thing I heard by them was Naughty Boys and it gave me a very false impression of what they were all about. Later on I heard the S/T and was astonished.

Neuromantic and What, Me Worry? are just as good as the top handful of YMO records.

Parts of Neuromantic and What, Me Worry are super Avalon/Ferry-esque.

Not sure if this has been linked before but just found this and it looks like a good resource: http://artcontext.com/artskool/jem/yt.html

soyrev, if you have a couple minutes check out http://artcontext.com/artskool/jem/index.html and click the "YMO studio/live" link on the left for an overview of their discography

sorry for posting over and over, but one more thing:

on that last link i posted, the description of SSS says "The front cover shows the band in Red Army costumes having a drink with a chairman Mao-type character and what looks like a call-girl, who on the back cover reveal themselves to be a pair of dolls ! (There exists a heavy-metal YMO tribute album whose cover parodies this one)."

anyone heard this?

I am very familiar with that webpage and have discovered a lot of awesome groups through there (For example, I had no idea that P-Model had so many albums - Mutant Sounds kinda led me to believe they only had a couple, like the Plastics). Too bad it's not really updated anymore. All three YMO members have very thorough sections on there and there are a lot of releases on there I wouldn't know of otherwise.

i think soryev was asking for a place to start re. fairport convention, no? in which case i'd say, richard and linda thompson's "i want to see the bright lights tonight"

technodelic kind of underrated IMO

xpost oh oops!

XXP - Oh shit! Apologies soryev!!!

http://youtu.be/_UtYH95kxa4

Because there can't be too much Bryan Ferry-ism in the world IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDIr9SKHpU

I haven't heard much FC but "Sailor's life" is really awesome and kinda typifies my vision of what I want FC to be or whatever..

haha no worries karl/mare, i appreciate the gesture anyway!

but if anyone does have any YMO/-related boots lying around, that would be super cool...:)

https://soundcloud.com/factmag/mikey-iq-jones-the-essential-yellow-magic-orchestra

promo for a new Polysics EP:

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/p180x540/10346436_924542590913526_6432228236959749198_n.jpg?oh=878a2190bcd2acb4a4ba914e1db0681a&oe=556D07AE

that YMO Stream facebook group is really really great, you should all join

man, i sort of hate the soundcloud interface; i wish there was a way to DL stuff from that site.

There is, but whoever uploads the song has to enable the download

the youtube-dl command line tool works for soundcloud too fyi

guess you need a facebook account to see the ymo group, huh? doesn't seem like it's public :-/

FB Page keeps on giving.

"I want to introduce the model today has produced five years ago.
But the world of self is the last...
In 1980, YMO world tour stage is.
Materials are sawn timber, Thong, bamboo, beads, etc.
Without seeing the reflection toward the transparent plastic plates so they might.
Since use for Christmas tree lights can have many variations.
Is, of course, not in the photo, I get sound. Well, I'll often do a ~ (-. -;"

http://i60.tinypic.com/2je2ujl.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/2jdjnza.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/2mdp3r7.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/155j6uo.jpg

Didn't really know where to post this as she doesn't have a dedicated thread but Sheena of Sheena & The Rokkets died today aged 61, RIP punk rock lady...!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_ZjRmZk8sc

looks like it was cancer. r.i.p. :-/

was surprised/amused when this scene happened in an episode of Hibike Euphonium (an anime about highschool marching bands)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_bhDwZEN5U

ha that's awesome

my japanese professors (in their 40s) know that tune so i guess it's not *that* surprising

it's "rydeen." you'd be harder pressed finding a japanese person who doesn't know it

I dunno how accurate this is but I see YMO as sort of a Japanese Beatles, nearly everything I've heard from Japan seems to be influenced by them in some way. Then again like 80% of the Japanese music I've listened to is technopop, but still

not really soyrev -- quite a few of the teachers, tutors and exchange students in my program i've talked to have no idea who they are.

"I dunno how accurate this is but I see YMO as sort of a Japanese Beatles, nearly everything I've heard from Japan seems to be influenced by them in some way."

not just japan. modern music. they were fundamental influences for everything from early techno to early hip-hop to early videogame music (a lot of which they composed). ask bambaataa, or anyone who went to detroit club nights in the late '80s. their influence is everywhere.

@clouds that's surprising. young and old, every japanese person i've met and talked about music with has laughed at me for asking if they know/like YMO. i have to imagine if you played them rydeen they'd at least recognize the theme.

This medley kicks fucking arse, especially the middle section of Rydeen, awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYFlk_GFB8Y

Oh man I love watching these dudes play with all that bulky equipment. Takakashi is one of the classiest drummers I've ever seen, all dressed up like that.

I bought this off eBay for like 15 bucks - pretty cool

http://coolestsound.jp/Takahashi_Yukihiro_Metafive_Techno_Recital_Takahas/2014.07.20/010395/

All of it sounds great, though I do question why he has an all-star lineup like this when they're just kinda along for the ride. Towa Tei's "Radio" is excellent and I'm really glad they perform it here.

my wife's best friends dad produced them! #namedrop

Damn!

Is that Lay My Love an Eno/Cale cover?

That it is!

Whoa that I would love to hear

Yeah, WTF, YouTube?

If you ask me Solid State Survivor is the best starting point, it's got some of their best-known material and it's the closest to the "Japanese Kraftwerk" tag that they always seem to get.

I'm listening to this album just now, I've never bought into the notion of YMO as the 'Japanese Kraftwerk' and this album is no closer to that tag than any of their others, in fact the comparison irritates me. I much prefer the BGM/Technodelic era of YMO fwiw.

OK, "Insomnia" is pretty Kraftwerk! But that is surely a homage?

For perspective, the only other group doing Martin Denny tributes in the late 70's was Throbbing Gristle (certainly coming from an entirely different place).

Nice shirt, Gen:

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/42/1242/1024/TG.jpg

Can't believe I had never noticed that