Yukihiro Takahashi of YMO has passed away this week. The Yellow Magic Orchestra are a bit of a footnote in the UK, best known for launching Ryuichi Sakamoto, although the band was really a joint-project shared with Japanese rock legend Haroumi Hosono and the drummer/singer Takahashi, formerly of the Sadistic Mika Band. Essentially a clever conceptual comment/joke on Japanese pop culture in the 70s-80s boom era, they are well remembered in the home country, and his death has attracted a lot of attention here. The single “Solid Sate Survivor” was a Takahashi song, as this live recording shows.
Yellow Magic Orchestra
The whole of the Soild State Survivors album is aces.
This should be of interest to the AW. I always wondered if they’d heard Devo’s take on Satisfaction.
I’ve only ever knowingly heard “Computer Game” which I think was probably a hit in about 1980? What a good tune that was. They’re one of the type of bands I feel I should know a lot more about. Might Solid State Survivors be a good place to start?
Yes, I’d say SSS is the place to start. Here’s another, which a certain guitar god took to number 15 in 1987.