Yellow Magic Orchestra's Biography - Official Website of Ciancio DJ

Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) is a Japanese electronic music band. The Yellow Magic Orchestra are considered pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machine computers and digital technologies in popular music. They include Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards and vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums and vocals), and Ryūichi Sakamoto (keyboards and vocals). The founding "fourth member" of the group was the music programmer Hideki Matsutake. They are often considered innovators in popular electronic music. They contributed to the birth of genres and styles such as synth pop, ambient house, electronics, electro, contemporary Japanese pop, house music, techno, and hip hop. More generally, their influence is evident among various genres of popular music, including electronic dance music and ambient music. Before the founding of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, their member Ryūichi Sakamoto began using electronic equipment, including various types of synthesizers (Buchla, Moog, and ARP), in the "Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music", where he enrolled in 1970 Following the dissolution of the group "Happy End", their former member Haruomi Hosono began recording numerous electronic rock albums, including Yosue Inoue's "Kori no Sekai" (1973) and Osamu Kitajima's "Benzaiten" (1974). Some of the early influences of the YMOs include Giorgio Moroder and the Kraftwerk, a formation that was "discovered" by Sakamoto and subsequently made known to other future members of the group. Starting in 1976, Sakamoto became a member of the "Sadistic Mika Band" along with Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Subsequently, the three musicians participated in the realization of the album "electro-exotica" "Paraiso", performed with an instrumentation including synthesizers Yamaha CS-80, Roland and ARP Odyssey, Yamaha CP-30, Rhodes electric pianos, and an electric guitar. Attributed to Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band, the album was released in 1978. In the same year, Sakamoto released his first solo album, "The Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto", which blends classical Japanese music with electronic sounds. This was one of the first albums to feature a microprocessor-based sequencer, the "Roland MC-8 Microcomposer". Hosono, Sakamoto and Takahashi subsequently decided to inaugurate the Yellow Magic Orchestra with the album of the same name released in 1978. In addition to being inspired by exoticism, the debut of the YMOs was made with modern electronic technologies and was not to present, at least conceptually, references to Orientalism and exoticism. Their name Yellow Magic Orchestra was a satirical reference to the Japanese obsession of the period with black magic. The album was made with a computer and synthesizers which, according to Billboard, allowed the group to invent new previously nonexistent sounds. Thanks to the success of the Yellow Magic Orchestra album, the band enjoyed wide popularity, even outside of Japan. The second album "Solid State Survivor", released in 1979, was considered the best album of the group at home, and won an award from the "Japan Records Award" in 1980. This album contains one of the group's most successful singles , "Behind the Mask", a song already used in 1978 to accompany an advertisement by Seiko. The track was later revisited by Michael Jackson in the early 1980s. Solid State Survivor sold over two million copies worldwide.

Discography:

Album

1978 - Yellow Magic Orchestra

1979 - Solid State Survivor
1980 - ×∞ Multiplies
1981 - BGM
1981 - Technodelic
1983 - Naughty Boys
1983 - Naughty Boys Instrumental
1983 - Service
1993 - Technodon (come YMO)

Singles

Firecracker (1979)

Yellow Magic (Tong Poo) (1979)
Technopolis (1979)
La Femme Chinoise (1979)
Computer Game (1980)
Rydeen (1980)
Behind the Mask (1980)
Nice Age (1980)
Tighten Up (Japanese Gentlemen Stand Up Please) (1980)
Cue (1981)
Mass (1981)
Taiso (1982
Pure Jam (1982)
Kimi ni Munekyun (1983)
Kageki na Shukujo (1983)
Ishin Denshin (You've Got To Help Yourself) (1983)
Every Time I Look Around (I Hear The Madmen Call) (1983)
Reconstructions (EP) (1992)
Pocketful of Rainbows (1993)
Be A Superman (1993)

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