"BGM" by the Yellow Magic Orchestra is the greatest electronic pop album ever.

amazing

Ah yeah my "Neuromantic" has the booklet as well! Still love BGM above all other YMO albums, personally.

actually did not know a lot of that

a Hayashi/Sato/Hosono YMO would've been something to hear. super thankful it didn't happen though

YMO records are pretty tough to find around here. I got BGM & the US version of Xoo Multiplies but other than that I've never seen one. Much less a YT solo album. I've heard the s/t album makes its way around sometimes but it must get snapped up quick.

currently listening to YT's recent live album "One Fine Night", which spans his entire career in 33 songs...very nice

Still can't quite believe that I saw them together at the London Hosono gig, even though I saw the HAS/YMO Meltdown thing in 2008, which was a bit limp to be honest.

that's so awesome KM

:)

this is going to be a very ymo year because my partner is now super into that whole scene and has started finding and recommending things for me to check out. i feel like we're now experiencing exponential growth :) it also helps that after years of repetition and reading this and other threads, i'm finally beginning to put the pieces together. like i was reading some more about hideki matsutake (the "4th member of YMO" who was basically their resident computer programmer nerd for their early albums), and then realized he recorded as Logic System, and it's just so much more satisfying to understand that connection on a slightly deeper level.

what a kickass album cover (1982)

https://i.imgur.com/IibvSLc.jpg

Yeah I love that cover. “Clash” off the first album is amazing if you slow it down (thank u DJ Harvey)

great posts, btw, Karl

This solo album of his: https://www.discogs.com/松武秀樹-今藤小苗長十郎-小松原まさし-江戸-Edo/master/902345

Is cool sort of 70s style electronic mixed with some trad Japanese sounds. Very fun listen if you’re into like the epic euro kind of electronic stuff that preceded YMO (TD, schulze, vangelis etc)

Acc to Discogs I think all the YMO albums were reissued last year on vinyl. Some of them have weird super pixelated covers. They’re official though, looks like. Haven’t seen em in stores myself (I see the early hosono albums everywhere which bemuses me)

yeah, I've seen those around in a few stores. so expensive! and since the old pressings are not exactly uncommon and sound nice enough to my ears, I think I'll pass.

even though I saw the HAS/YMO Meltdown thing in 2008, which was a bit limp to be honest.

well, now I don't feel so bad for missing it!

not much of a fan of the recordings from that era either. it's cool that they didn't want to repeat themselves but... I don't find those rearrangements very satisfying at all. like, this isn't bad or anything but I can't really think of any situation where I'd prefer to listen to this version of "rydeen" instead of the original -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po1rPMoGXm4

your experience as original bgm must be different from the average person, but yeah they are expensive! i prefer to hang back and eventually become a world traveler to that record store in tokyo buy $200 worth of it, possibly even $250

i don't know if you lot saw this already, but you might be interested in the studio mule album 'bgm' that came out last summer which had covers of ymo ('ballet'), mariah, taeko ohnuki etc. rediscovered it the other day while i was going through stuff i'd saved on spotify. it's very pleasant btw

https://thevinylfactory.com/news/obscure-japanese-gems-reworked-studio-mule-band-album-bgm/

https://open.spotify.com/album/4O0IKN2qIUKd5e6x1v23mW?si=Q5OQSsBHRZ-vTjGMynwWbQ

your experience as original bgm must be different from the average person, but yeah they are expensive!

heh. well, ymo-related stuff has gotten much pricier the last few years but... those were something like 50¥+ a pop when I saw em. and the covers are ugly! seems like weird rabid collector bait.

it's missing a ton (and much of it isn't available), but here's a first stab at a ymo + solo chronological playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3wiA1XXpeNR07R680rvJRg?si=j0zTWq5ISA-FN-hhl0Kmvw

Acc to Discogs I think all the YMO albums were reissued last year on vinyl. Some of them have weird super pixelated covers. They’re official though, looks like. Haven’t seen em in stores myself (I see the early hosono albums everywhere which bemuses me)

Ah thanks for the info

How I wish somebody would write a book on YMO.

― disastrous sixth series (MaresNest), Monday, June 21, 2010 9:39 AM (nine years ago)

did this ever happen? or at least on one of the members? did anyone ever do a 33 1/3? i would devour that shit

Not in Eigo, to my knowledge.

Here's where they seem to be at with the 33 1/3 Japanese Music series.

http://www.norikomanabe.com/33-1-3-japan

It's maddening to me, cause their whole story is so fucking deep, you could write acres of material about each member's solo work and pre-YMO work alone.

Just listened to BGM immediately followed by Technodelic and I gotta say, while the former is cool weird, the latter is them going to the next level entirely. I love the fusion of their style with Bill Nelson and Japan's post-punkness. So many cool sounds and ideas all jumbled together.

We should poll them, who would win, Hosono?

Totally agreed about how odd it is there's not a book on these guys yet. Don't know if the recent surge in interest piqued some interest in writing it over in Japan, but like MN said, there is sooo much to write about!

Hosono would probably win, yeah.

YMO poll: Sakamoto vs. Hosono vs. Takahashi

Ah, there we go :)

Still, my memory lapse has sent me off to listen to Bon Voyage Co whilst tidying the house

thread title is still accurate

the part on "Rap Phenomena" where Hosono loops himself going "WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP" is so fucking funny

he sounds so despondent telling everybody to rap

How I wish somebody would write a book on YMO.

― disastrous sixth series (MaresNest), Monday, June 21, 2010 7:39 AM (ten years ago)

otm

Surely it must already exist, and needs to be translated?

If anything they taught us about the free market is correct, even one thing, this book has to be out there already. Otherwise, maybe the uncomfortable feeling we’ve all had over the years is actually the free hand, harassing

I had a mooch around the book dept in Disc Union in Shibuya a few years back, there looked to be some YMO related books there but the poor chap behind the counter's eigo was non-existent and he was petrified of the wacky westerner asking daft questions.

There's a chapter on Happy End/YMO/etc. in Michael K. Bourdagh's Sayonora Amerika, Sayonora Nippon: A Geopolitical Prehistory of J-Pop. I got it out of the library just to read that chapter, and now I have to say I can't remember much about it! It was engaging Japanese pop's ambivalent relationship to the West post-WWII, which seems pretty obviously key to what YMO was. But I think I wanted a bit more of your conventional rock biography stuff, about recording the albums, relationships in the band, the industry, etc.

I'd like to think that W David Marx would be a good candidate, his book 'Ametora' is fascinating and his music blog writings were always pretty great.

http://neojaponisme.com/category/music-3/

Japanese pop's ambivalent relationship to the West post-WWII, which seems pretty obviously key to what YMO was

Can you elaborate on this point?

Maybe calling it "key" or speaking of "the West" here is imprecise, but something of the sort was certainly part of the group's conceptual foundation. Calling themselves Yellow Magic Orchestra ironically incorporates Western racism into the name of the group. They do giddily ironic covers of "oriental" easy listening exotica on synthesizers. Their techno-futurism conjures Japan's newfound position as a producer of premier appliances and automobiles such that the country is admired but feared and loathed as a source of economic threat and potential decline in US hegemony. Some of this is gestured at pretty clearly in the English-language skits on X∞Multiplies. Mind you, I don't perceive this theme so much after that point — someone who knows the history/Japanese would be better equipped to address the question. I'd like to read that book too!

here's one cool thing I just discovered - you know that bit on "Ballet" where the French woman (same one from "La Femme Chinoise"??) has that speaking bit? well, apparently this is what she's saying:

Je suis fatiguée du même vieux chaos
J'en suis malade
Il devrait y avoir une sortie à ce cul-de-sac

which is the same as the bridge from "Cue"

I’m sick and tired of the same old chaos
there must be a way out of this cul-de-sac.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/yellow-magic-orchestra-bgm/

pretty nice write up, hope this encourages a few more people to check it out

Enjoyed that, interesting to see that the writer quotes from a Peter Barakan interview I did a few years back, kinda emblematic of the paucity of information on the group in English, frustrating given their stature, collectively and otherwise.

I never knew Sakamoto sat out for a big part of the album’s writing process!

Happy 40th!

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1373528906315278&set=gm.4276693085709147

Listened to YMO a lot last week and I think "Technodelic" is my favourite. "BGM" second. I'm not really a big fan of the first two albums, tbh.

I kinda feel that a lot of the first two records comes alive in a concert setting.

their first one is my least listened ymo I think. I listened to SSS about a trillion times while playing Super Nintendo (in college, as a burnout)

I've been on a YMO kick recently (again) and was thinking about how I'd rank their albums. I think it would be something like this.

Naughty Boys
Solid State Survivor
BGM
Service (this jumped up my list recently, especially as I discovered the European version on vinyl which doesn't feature the skits)
Technodelic
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Multiplies

I still haven't heard the reunion album.

My latest discovery is how great the Naughty Boys instrumentals are. Such joyful music.

I really like "Multiples"!

Oh I do really like it too. They're a rare band where I kind of love all the albums I've heard by them. That's just the one I play the least.

currently:

BGM
Technodelic
Solid State Survivor
Naughty Boys
Service
S/T

but any of those top 4 have been my favorite at some point

x00Multiplies is a hard one to rank. depends on which version. the american version has an unstoppable tracklist and is fun to listen to, but also has repeats from other releases

I'd probably rank 'em like this:

BGM
Naughty Boys
Technodelic
s/t
Solid State Survivor
Service
Xoo Multiplies
Technodon

I know BGM is my favorite - I happen to agree with the thread title, but #2-5 are pretty interchangeable, they're all more or less perfect albums in my book

I'm probably underrating Service - I also recently discovered the Euro version which has got me listening to it again. it's not as fun as Naughty Boys but the songs are remarkably sophisticated, particularly given that it was kind of a cash in to begin with.

Xoo Multiplies is a lot of fun (particularly the first side) - I feel kind of weird laughing at it (basically all the humor stems off Western perceptions of Japanese people, right?) but it's so bizarre and idiosyncratic that I can't help it. That said it's not really much of an album, it's basically just got 4 songs on it

Technodon is okay, but as the members themselves admitted they were all in sorta different places musically at that point so it's no secret why it didn't quite work out. It's got a handful of good tracks on it though. I think the two albums done under the Sketch Show name do the band a lot more justice but Sakamoto wasn't on those so I guess they don't count.

of course it's also neat that there are a bunch of solo albums released concurrently which generally feature all the YMO members anyway, and generally tend to be excellent - Hosono's Paraiso & Cochin Moon are amazing proto-YMO albums, Takahashi's Murdered by the Music is a great companion to Xoo Multiplies (but with a lot more actual songs, naturally), Sakamoto's Thousand Knives & B-2 Unit + Hosono's Philharmony are all fascinating experimental electronic LPs, Takahashi's Neuromantic & What, Me Worry? both feature very good technopop songwriting, and of course the album he did as The Beatniks with Keiichi Suzuki is mesmerizing and surprisingly weird, and then there's Hideki Matsutake's Logic....basically whatever facets of YMO you like, there are albums expanding on it