Yup. It’s music.

Yellow Magic Orchestra – X∞Multiplies
Nice Age
Behind The Mask
Rydeen
Day Tripper
Technopolis
Multiples
Citizens Of Science
Solid State Survivor
Talk about a band that’s criminally underheard (in America anyways). Yellow Magic Orchestra is one of the synth-pop bands. As far as I’m concerned they’re one of the first bands to perfect the electronic-pop sound, nearly beating Kraftwerk to the punch. So why haven’t you heard of them? Well, most likely it’s because they’re from Japan, and us American assholes just don’t seem to dig on Asian pop musicians, no matter how amazing they are. NONE of YMO’s discography is currently in print in America, although the import price for their first two albums aren’t that bad at Amazon at the moment. In the age of MP3s and digital music stores this is really inexcusable. Hey, whoever owns the rights to YMO’s music, if you make it available to purchase I’ll buy it. You’re making it hard for me to give you money.

The history to this album is a bit confusing but also appropriate, considering that there are multiple versions of it. The Japanese version came first, and that featured a collection of new tracks as well as some sketch comedy bits. The American and European versions cut out all the comedy bits and instead treated the album as a compilation, taking the best bits from the band’s first two albums and throwing them in with the tracks that were already there. The tracks listed here tonight are from my copy, which is the American version.

And that version of “Day Tripper” is something else.