RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

there's so much reverb on Naughty Boys that everything is kind of disorienting, in the best way of course. I almost wonder if there's something sinister hiding behind some of these lyrics, especially given the stuff they were writing around this time.

does Technodon even have any Japanese lyrics? I really don't remember. and I like the album! but most of the singing is in English...and "Nanga Def" I don't think is Japanese is it?

I almost wonder if there's something sinister hiding behind some of these lyrics, especially given the stuff they were writing around this time.

Sinister, -- like, in a "we're touching on the dissolution of our own relationships" kind of way?

I've still got Technodon ahead of me! Been exploring moooore or less chronologically, so I want to get properly acquainted with what Hosono and Sakamoto did in the latter half of the '80s first -- Hosono plenty of really weird stuff, and Sakamoto seeming to lean weirdwards in his own way too (Futurista and Neo Geo sound pretty out there -- plus I haven't heard Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia or Esperanto yet). I have some catching up to do with Takahashi too. His solo albums tend to sound dull to me on first several listens, and I have to push myself to listen, but given enough time, I end up figuring out how wonderful everything actually is -- happened big-time with Murdered by the Music, and it's happening again now with Neuromantic. What Me Worry was love on first listen, though. Half of it sounds like it could have been produced by Hosono himself.

yup those 3 YT albums are great. I like Tomorrow's Another Day too. some of those later 80s albums aren't all that great but I think his 90s work is really nice. Technodon probably sounds the most like Hosono's Medicine Compilation, which I think came out after, but it's got a few tracks that would slot right in.

Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia is very good, though you probably want to get the original version called Ongaku Zukan, especially the one with the bonus 12 inch ("Replica" is one of his prettiest tracks). Esperanto is pretty odd, I think some ILXors really like it - IMO the best way to experience it is through the video that was released alongside it, just to immerse yourself in total 80s digital mayhem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-nJPWJE0cs

Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia is AMAZING, so many catchy melodies. There’s a brilliant rocksteady track, even.

this is a really really cool comp of Ryuichi productions/solo work that was apparently only ever released as a promo with one of his CM music comps

https://www.discogs.com/release/6005544-Ryuichi-Sakamoto-Gem

I have (mp3, sadly) and love that GEM collection.

Here is it as Flac files - https://we.tl/t-1y4VKQ6cIE

Grabbed that, MaresNest, thank you! And thanks to Brimstead and Jay Vee for the recommendation.

("Replica" is one of his prettiest tracks)

I downloaded Replica after seeing your recommendation in the Sakamoto thread for it (you said something about icy synths, and I am always game for icy synths) and then played it about a hundred times.

My Naughty Boys translation project ended prematurely, when I realized that there's already an excellent translation of Kimi ni Mune Kyun up on Genius. Here I was bracing myself to wrestle with a Takashi Matsumoto lyric (Happy End's drummer/lyricist) and then -- aha. I was glad to be spared the struggle but it was also kinda anticlimactic. But then I thought, hold on...

Chaos Panic, to the rescue! There was no Chinese cheatsheet this time (the comments on the streaming app generally amount to, "Holy hell, this has a vocal version?!" along with a "I thought Hosono's vocals were actually David Sylvian") so, fair warning, this may be rougher / more approximate / just plain wrong than usual.

...

(You got me shaking and quaking
You got me shaking and quaking
Shaking, quaking, my world is turning upside down)

(HH vox)
Autumn showers in the east.
In the west the sun goes down.
Love is a gaze
that shakes violently and sways.
(Earthquake! Earthquake!)

(YT vox)
You say love shouldn't be treated like a game?
Well then, I'll say it straight out:
I love you!

You say times of happiness always come to an end.
Be that as it may, the fact right now is that
I love you!

(You got me shaking and quaking...)

(repeat Hosono verse)

(YT vox)
Leave everything to time.
We sway and rock as one.
I love you now!

When we embrace,
I go floating through the sky.
I love you now!

(You got me shaking and quaking...)

^^ this song will always be special to me, my first YMO was a pretty odd compilation album which had this and this was the song on it I really got obsessed with. though for a while I thought the lyric was "you got to shake it and break it"

I think Hosono would be happy with that mishearing, Frog.

Here, for reference / to satisfy the completist in me, is a copy & paste of user handle qomolangma's translation of Kimi ni Mune Kyun for Genius. I would've kept the unforgettable onomatopoeia and rendered the title as "My Heart Goes 'Kyun' for You' -- but Qomo's "I've Got a Crush on You" gets the spirit across, and anyway, anybody interested in an English version of the lyrics will already have the four letters KYUN written across their heart.

... (cheers, qomo)

I've got a crush on you! During this summer of desire
Place your hand on my shoulder.
I've got a crush on you!
"Have you noticed?" I asked that timidly.

A line dance that moves like a ripple
It's just a plain waste of time
A high voltage glance
as things get heated up

I've got a crush on you!
We printed out a photo of our summer
We're just getting sunburnt
I've got a crush on you!
To me, this is uncharacteristically platonic

The cruel sea breeze
measures the distance between our hearts
The yearning I felt when you momentarily lowered your glance felt so wonderful

(the Italian bit)

I've got a crush on you! "I love you."
I can't say that out easily.

But you often see that
in Italian movies too.

I've got a crush on you! During this summer of desire
Place your hand on my shoulder.
I've got a crush on you!
"Have you noticed?" I asked that timidly.

I've got a crush on you! "I love you."
I can't say that out easily.
I've got a crush on you! We run along the beach
As we get shrouded within the shadow of the fog

I've got a crush on you! During this summer of desire
Place your hand on my shoulder.
I've got a crush on you!
"Have you noticed?" I asked that timidly.

listening again to Naughty Boys now that I know some of the lyrics, and yeah can confirm it's still the best pop album ever made

I haven't done a proper reckoning in a while but I think it's crept into my all-time top ten.

Really interesting stuff in the Gem collection, thanks all! Gave my first listen to Ongaku Zukan as well -- wonderful. So much reggae! (which for me is a huge plus.)

I didn't realize how awesome the lyrics to Camouflage and Mass are. Good, more reasons to adore BGM.

I'm definitely interested in the BGM lyrics, I know someone translated the middle section of "U-T" and it was very weird and meta. I can't find it now though!

Here's the UT bit, edited for clarity.

...

Hosono: Hello, I'm your host, Hosono. Appearing on the show today are Yellow Magic Orchestra's Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Welcome, gentlemen.

Takahashi: Thank you.

Sakamoto: Thank you.

Hosono: First, I’d like to ask Mr. Takahashi...

Takahashi: Yes?

Hosono: Do you know the word U•T?

Takahashi: Well, I know YT, but this is the first time I've ever heard of U•T.

Hosono: Is that so? Well, then, Mr. Sakamoto, what does the word U•T mean?

Sakamoto: It means otherwordly existence.

Hosono: Is that so? By the way, Mr. Takahashi's drumming on this song is amazing, isn't it?

Takahashi: Yes. It is amazing.

Hosono: Yes. Well then, will you listen to this song when it comes out on BGM?

Takahashi & Sakamoto: Of course not!

Gradated Grey and Key back to back are just unbelievable.

Today I heard my way into the Simoon bassline. I don't think I'll be able to notice anything else about the song ever again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l79HgXvxP8

^^ hah, just coming to post that. it's from the same guy who did that "what's on the Genesis floppy discs" video which I know some ILXors liked.

Would any Solid State Survivor diehards mind expounding a bit on what you love most about the album? After a very long stint of it being my least favorite YMO album, yesterday I had one of those "scales falling from your eyes" moments. Could hardly believe I was listening to the same album. I'd love to get some cheat sheets as to what to pay attention to, now that I'm finally attuned to what it's doing.

Also, people here have said SSS is the most Kraftwerkian YMO album. I've never knowingly heard a Kraftwerk song. What should I try first? Insomnia is my favorite on SSS, if that helps.

thats a real hard question to answer I mean it's one of the catchiest albums ever made. it plugs directly into that part of your brain that freaks out whenever you hear come on Barbie lets go party

I've never knowingly heard a Kraftwerk song. What should I try first?

what??? I swear I never say things like this but how do you not know Kraftwerk? give 'em a try there's a 50% shot it's your new favorite thing and you're bumping the Kraftwerk thread in a week going "holy shit y'all ever heard Europe Endless" and a 50% shot you're like "nah it's pretty corny but maybe it was cool back it its day". when I discovered them I was the latter but after a while really got into them. anyway Neon Lights is my favorite track by them, the second half especially is some of my favorite music ever, if you want an album I think Computer World will tell you what you need to know. but if you're afraid you'll find them too silly maybe do Man-Machine instead.

computer world is their best album and a total classic

as for SSS the moment at the end of Technopolis where the music slowly fades away but the drums don't is one of the coolest moments in their catalogue. just so you can plainly hear how great YT's drums are on this thing

actually come to think of it that's what really makes this album tick. of all the cool synth stuff being done back then the one that really blows my mind is this. like the fact it was released in the same decade that Pink Floyd and Zeppelin were hitting the charts is still crazy to me. you hear Kraftwerk and yeah it's impressive but it does sound like what you'd expect synth pop in the 70s to sound like. Moroder had more sophisicated rhythms but they were still pretty static. YMO however had Yukihiro Takahashi who *sounds* like a drum machine but is in fact someone who by the way can play all sorts of complicated backwards shuffle patterns with ease. so it sounds so far beyond everything else that was going on at the time.

That figures, one of the thoughts I had yesterday was, "If this album was JUST drums, I think it'd become a favorite on the strength of these drumfills alone."

OTM re: the Barbie comment, though it makes me wonder why Naughty Boys clicked so soon and this didn't.

I always think about that when I listen to the '78 debut -- how in god's name did it occur to Hosono that he should make this kind of all-digital music BUT keep a live drummer?

Which spawned the follow-up thought: is genius actually just the combination of a great idea and the wherewithal/dedication to follow through on it?

I've never knowingly heard a Kraftwerk song. What should I try first?

Kraftwerk released six classic albums between 1974 and 1986* and one of their many remarkable aspects is that each one is completely different in concept and mood to the record that preceded it. Autobahn invented synth-pop and has a very melodic major-key sound, but is also quite Krautrock-y in places. Radio Activity (1975) is much more somber and atmospheric in feel, which of course sometimes exactly what you want.

Trans-Europe Express (1977) kicks off with a lovely pop epic ("Europe Endless") but then works its way through a series of gothic masterpieces. The penultimate track, "Franz Schubert", is hauntingly beautiful and dreamlike; I think it's the most slept-on piece in their whole catalogue. This album marks the point where Kraftwerk acquired their first sequencer, but it's used throughout as a fifth band-member, meaning that there is still a discernible "live" feel in places. By contrast, every track on The Man-Machine (1978) is built up from ultra-precise sequenced rhythm patterns, and the band's drummer essentially became surplus to requirements. This is one of the reasons that The Man-Machine stands in elite company as one of the most influential pop albums ever recorded. That said, conceptual and technical brilliance doesn't count for much if you don't also bring some great tunes to the party, and Kraftwerk delivered on that too. "The Model" was released a single some years later and hit number one in the British charts!

Computer World (1981) doubles down on the interest in danceability that began to appear in its predecessor, and in places radically pares back the band's usual focus on melody and harmony in favour of funky proto-electro drum patterns. That said, it does include their pop songwriting apotheosis, "Computer Love", which is built around their most beautiful and melancholic set of melodies. Kraftwerk are often described as musical visionaries, but what's also fascinating here is that the lyric imagines an electronic match-making service, prefiguring the emergence of Tinder by about three decades. ("I need a rendezvous / Computer love, I call this number / For a data date")

* Electric Café was generally regarded as a disappointment on its release in 1986 and is still derided even by many aficionados. However, while I will admit that it's not wholly on a par with their previous few records, I do really like it. Although Kraftwerk's de facto leader Ralf Hütter subsequently became content for the band to become a heritage act, in the mid-80s he was still very intent on pushing forward musically. To this end, they retired their warm-sounding analogue synthesisers in favour of the most sophisticated (and expensive) digital workstation of the era, the Synclavier. And it had the desired effect, in that Electric Café did sound absolutely state of the art at the time of its release. Although there is a nice, wistful pop song ("The Telephone Call") half-way through, the overall vibe is prescient, angular minimalism. "Boing Boom Tschak" and "Musique Non-Stop" are playful, but also viciously funky. Turn up the volume and the Synclavier's hard-edged drum samples will pummel you into submission.

I always think about that when I listen to the '78 debut -- how in god's name did it occur to Hosono that he should make this kind of all-digital music BUT keep a live drummer?

he plays bass on it too. actually I'm pretty sure there's real bass and drums on all of YMO's albums in varying quantities. but on later albums it's way more of a mix.

how did it occur to him? probably just heard YT play :)

the mood of “rydeen” is particular is very LETS GOOOOOOO!!! what a tune.

So apparently, when they were making BGM, Hosono asked Sakamoto to write a new song in the vein of Thousand Knives. Sakamoto said, "Fuck you. Why don't you just put Thousand Knives on it then?"

Extensive 2020 interview with Hideki Matsutake!

https://www.electricityclub.co.uk/logic-system-interview/

I love that Hosono kept the Infinite Space Octave in mind for THREE YEARS.