RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

Hosono turns 75 today!!

Let's just dwell for one moment on how epic Harry is, I mean, he's bloody legendary.

I had a very strange YMO related dream the other day

I was a member of a Facebook group called "YMO Tongposting" (or something like that) which was mostly memes about "Yukihiro Takahashi's Sexual Voice Message" and I came up with an idea for a meme that would get a thousand likes, it was a video of the three members of YMO on Wheel of Fortune and every time one of them was up they would say "give me a Q" like in "Cue" and Pat Sajak would keep going "sorry, no Qs" and then eventually "do you have any guesses other than Q?" and the three would say "Q! Q! Q!" like in "Kimi Ni Mune Kyun". I posted it and it got thousands of likes and in the comments a bunch of photos of YT with his arms folded and the text "Yukihiro Takahashi Fact Check: True"

ok I know this shit belongs in a fanboy Discord but I was just impressed I came up with a pretty fully formed (if extremely niche) joke in my dreams. I had to document it somewhere

i 100% get all of that, haha

That is amazing lol

As a Brit, I don't really get the full picture but I sense the greatness.

is there any band (let alone only three-member) that did more great things as a group and among their various side projects and solo careers?

Realised the other day that one contender for this would be Tropicalia, if you count them as a band (which is a stretch I admit).

TG, albeit they were 4.

the 10cc folks wrote/produced all kinds of bubblegum singles and stuff, right?

Japanese sources are reporting that Yukihiro Takahashi, the former Yellow Magic Orchestra drummer and lead vocalist, has died. He was 70. He had an operation to remove a brain tumour in 2020, and in 2021 revealed further health problems. A sad loss of a prolific talent. pic.twitter.com/Fp9FZ0a9F2

— Electronic Sound (@ElectronicMagUK) January 14, 2023

damn, rip

Feeling sad about YT, and worried RS is the next shoe to drop. I hope not.

I'm not sure why I never posted this, but it's embedded into my memory from a very young age. It was a direct-to-VHS movie called "Where The Toys Come From" and the music was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Akiko Yano.

(Spoiler alert, the toys come from Japan)

There's this song—I can't remember the name—but it's a sequence YMO used to perform live, and there's variation of it on one of the Akiko Yano albums. Anyway, another version of this appears in Where The Toys Come From, when they travel to Japan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLDoKgFw9RI

And then the closing credits feature a Sakamoto / Yano collaboration where she sings about toys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTmD8FQKHmY

I'm pretty sure this is the only context where this song ever appears, so those if you interested in rare YMO memorabilia may find this interesting.

I never realised there was a noodly techno 90s reformation! I quite like it actually, guessing this might be the encore?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfY9AKKK28M

Technodon! the YMO record with lots of guest voices, good concert that too, Technodon In Tokyo Dome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtnifKDe4zY

I watched that entire concert the other day. it must've been so cool to have actually been there. as mentioned in the top comment Sakamoto slipping "Cosmic Surfin" in at 7:27 to the surprise of the other band members is such a cool moment. definitely my favorite version of "Behind the Mask" - it's kind of a bummer that they didn't record a technofied remake album the way Kraftwerk and Telex did.

also I think I finally realized what makes Naughty Boys such a special album, it's the fact that it's basically 40 minutes worth of advertising jingles. every single sound on it shimmers, all those drum rolls just pop out of the speakers, even the vocals are surprisingly tuneful. and tons of reverb on everything which makes it all a bit surreal. it just fires off so much serotonin. no wonder these guys got so much work doing commercials and soundtracks.

I can’t recommend this compilation of RS’s advert work highly enough:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2283320-Ryuichi-Sakamoto-Works-I-CM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qHvgf89FuI

lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0V_whX77j4

Exactly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPv794U09Ek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNA2ArzxmWI

Very Japanese commitment to detail here

How is it so easy for these guys to melt my heart? Is it just the accumulated weight of all those years of friendship? Hosono and Takahashi doing the Flying Saucer arrangement of Sports Men:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiDbcy-nfpg

Watching Takahashi play drums is one of the chief delights of the Internet age, this we all know. I didn't know that he can lay the charm on just as thick when all he's doing is singing harmony.

Naughty Boys has been smashing my mind into splinters. Godly album.

Here's my attempt at a translation of Sakamoto's lyrics for Kai-Koh ("Chance Encounter"). My Japanese is a work-in-progress but in this case (and all of Naughty Boys!) I can compare it against a fan translation into Chinese.

...

I can't sing
any more beautiful love songs.
I've been walking alone, on foot.
And I'm saying goodbye to the person I've been until now.

I've run too far away.
There is nothing left at all now.
I can't stay here.
And I'm saying goodbye to the person I've been until now.

[repeat first verse]

...

Go figure that THE most propulsive and thrilling song on the album (okay that's arguable) has crushingly sad lyrics.

hah, the different between the music and lyrics there is practically They Might be Giants-esque

always found their lyrics post-SSS to be fascinating, especially "Music Plans" and all the meta stuff on BGM. for whatever reason I've never really cared about the Naughty Boys lyrics but yea a full translation of the non-English songs would be awesome! not asking YOU to do it...just saying someone should :)

I've never really cared about the Naughty Boys lyrics

Maybe precisely because there are almost no English ones? Other than Opened My Eyes and Wild Ambitions, the side closers (again with these guys and the really careful LP sequencing) I think there's just a line or three here and there -- the outro to Focus, the chorus to Expecting Rivers.

not asking YOU to do it...just saying someone should :)

I don't want to publicize everywhere that this is my intention, in case I fail to get it done, but... this is my intention.

Alright, here's Ongaku ("Music"). Comments in the premier Chinese streaming app say this was written for Ryuichi's daughter Maaya, who would have been two to three years old at the time. So that'd be a toy train in the last line of the verse. Gorgeous song.

...

I spread our atlas open: hey, that's music.
You climb onto the piano: hey, that's music.

Can't wait 'til we can sing together.

I spread our atlas open: hey, that's music.
You climb onto the piano: hey, that's music.
I nibble on an apple: hey, that's music.
And you rattle the train: hey, that's music.

Can't wait 'til we can sing together.
Can't wait 'til we can dance together.

Goddammit Takahashi! I was translating the second verse earlier ("I didn't look back" etc., x:xx in the recording) and started crying. I'm beginning to think that in those fateful years between 1978 and, what, 1985 or so, Chris Mosdell and Peter Barakan had the best jobs in the world.

Here's Expected Way.

...

I have come a long way.
At last, I have arrived
and cast aside my heavy pack.
I think there is nothing left of what I left behind --

the light from the window, always the same,
the air inside the room I once loved,
the book lying open, always at the same page,
the cigarette butts in the ashtray...

I didn't look back
no matter who called after me.
I pushed the door open with my own two hands
and saw a road I'd never taken stretching ahead.

I'm certain you're the same as ever,
watching TV, laughing alone,
setting aside a half-finished cup of tea,
getting up when the doorbell rings.

[instrumental break]

[repeat above stanza]

If you can get an agitated heart to quiet down,
it will feel like a harbinger of something;
that's the strange sensation
that I want this song to get across.

Oops, meant to fill in that time-stamp. Second verse starts around 1:27.

had no idea the lyrics to Ongaku were so cute. I knew it was a tribute to his daughter but that's it.

Takahashi, for all his talents, also seems to be an incredible lyric writer? idk I never see that mentioned but the dude is pure class

Right?! I think you would have to be in a band with, uh, Hosono and Sakamoto to be THIS good at what you do and still end up kind of overshadowed. I loved those two right away (Kazemachi Roman, Thousand Knives of), Takahashi took a bit to grow on me, but the longer I spend with his work and the closer I pay attention to what he's doing, the more I adore him.

Focus -- the story of a guy nursing a broken heart, wandering around town in the evening, who accidentally photographs his ex out on a happy date. In what I believe is typical Hosono style (developed during the Happy End days as a defense against being in the same band with Takashi Matsumoto; Hosono felt he couldn't compete with Matsumoto where narrative and emotional weight and imagery were concerned, so when he started writing lyrics for his own songs on the band's third album, he leaned heavily into wordplay -- not that he didn't get good at all those other things too, but the wordplay remained prominent), there are probably lots of puns and double meanings that went over my head -- and I don't know photography so I can only guess at the technical bits too.

An example: the word for "end" that Hosono chose for "end of the world" is a homonym for the Japanese word for "weekend," a word that only appears in the song in English.

In any case, the rhythm of the falling words is probably more important than the words themselves, in this song's case. Those English line endings (weekend! TRY-X! weekend! focus!) are so satisfying.

...

Seems it's happened again --
somehow the day grew dark while I wasn't paying attention.
What's out of the ordinary is the envy burning inside me.

An ordinary weekend in the city.
The position fixed, the shutter set.
A noisy weekend in the city.
The focus suppresses nausea.

Abruptly, on the street corner, I'm conquered by jealousy.
A face I could never forget, accompanied by a secret silhouette.

(You'll be burning with a new love tonight,
and I'll be burning old pictures on my mind.)

An unexpected weekend --
crushing the TRY-X in my hands.
A weekend like the end of the world --
you there, in distinct focus.

That smile, frozen in place, has forced me to shut my eyes.
The girl who turned towards the camera is a star in the firmament now.

(You'll be burning...)

Speaking of Haruomi Hosono and imagery, here's Lotus Love.

...

A feeling that doesn't change,
eternally returning and reverberating.
(I love you.)
Petals in the inner corner of the eye,
the accustomed incantation in the throat.
(I love you.)

(Baby!) Come leap through time.
(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.

Sitting in the dusk.
Words that no one can see.
(I love you.)
In times of fatigue,
I become like snow melting in the sunlight.
(You love me.)

(Baby!) Come leap through time.
(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.
(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.

An incantation surreptitiously grazing
the mouth glimpsed in a dream.
(Love, love, love.)

(Baby!) Come leap through time.
(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.
(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.

(Baby!) Come leap through time.
(Baby!) Let's meet outside the world.

Hosono seems he would be a high-maintenance boyfriend

Ah, that cracked me up.

Got a good listen to Service in today -- remains the YMO I'm least familiar with. That Sakamoto-saturated bridge in You've Got to Help Yourself is fantastic. The Hosono tunes sound like they're already halfway to S-F-X.

remains the YMO I'm least familiar with

Except Technodon, I forgot Technodon. Everyone always forgets Technodon.

Here's Expecting Rivers, aka bliss embodied in song. Until I wrote the lyrics out structurally like this, I had no idea the chorus happens five times. You need to have written an incredible chorus to repeat it five times and not even get me to notice.

Considering also Opened My Eyes ("I couldn't sleep in my bed at night, I didn't have any appetite ... for ANYTHING"), YT lyrically owns Naughty Boys.

...

(Dreams fly by
In a starless sky
Dreams fly by)

Now and then, on a pitch-black night, I go out walking.
We drift and fumble along.

The riverside is drifting too.
The water is the color of tears.
You have lost your way.
And me, I'm turning.

(Dreams fly by...)

The riverside is drifting.
The water is the color of tears.
You have lost your way.
And me, I'm turning.

(Dreams fly by...)

Now and then, on a pitch-black night, I go out walking.
We were drifting, we were fumbling along.

Above the slippery river.
The water is brimming over.
You are trembling.
And it's time, so I'm rising.

We set out rowing.
We make good progress.
We're rowing against the current -- yes?
And we're laughing?

(Dreams fly by...)

We set out rowing.
We make good progress.
We're rowing against the current -- yes?
And we're laughing?

(Dreams fly by...)

I miss seeing Yuki looking stylish on social media in some little cafe with his dog and his friends.

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.