Archive for the ‘Yellow Magic Orchestra’ Category

I’m more like an A380

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

When I proclaimed that “The Time (Dirty Bit)” was the worst song of the millennium behind “My Humps” I had not yet heard “Like A G6” by The Far East Movement. So she wants to be like a private jet that drinks purple drank? Yikes. Sometimes I just wanna give up on pop culture and move to Yemen or something.

Yellow Magic Orchestra
Limbo
S.E.T. 1
The Madmen
S.E.T. 2
Chinese Whispers
S.E.T. 3
You’ve Got To Help Yourself
S.E.T. + YMO
Shadows on the Ground
S.E.T. 4
See-Through
S.E.T. 5
Perspective
S.E.T. 6
Just like I promised, here’s some more from Ryuichi Sakamoto! All these tracks are from Service, which is the only Japanese Yellow Magic Orchestra album I own. Not surprisingly, it’s also the weirdest. While the Americanized versions of their albums are just all music, most of their Japanese albums also included comedy bits by the Super Eccentric Theater (or S.E.T.). YMO performed most of their songs in English, the bits by S.E.T. are strictly in Japanese. So, unless you speak Japanese, they’re pretty much pointless to listen to. As far as the actual music goes…well, it’s okay. Its a very good 80s synthpop album, but their earlier albums are much better and far more experimental. This was the last YMO album proper, and the group didn’t record together again until a decade later.

This post is Yellow. And not in a Racist Way.

Friday, October 1st, 2010

It’s funny, now that I got a good turntable, I can finally go through the 8 billion records I’ve been wanting to record for the past six months. Good news for all you guys. That means a lot more posts. I guess it’s good news for me too, but it’s also more work, so I think it kind of evens out.

Yellow Magic Orchestra
Tighten Up (Long Version)
I love me some YMO, but this track is pretty annoying. The exaggerated fake Japanese voice is what really gets me. Although “Everybody’s doing it! Even David Bowie’s doing it!” always makes me laugh. This is from a 12” single.

Hardfloor vs. Yello
Vicious Games (Hardfloor Remix)
Vicious Games (Remixed by Boris Blank & Olaf Wollschlager)
Vicious Games (Vorsprung Durch Technik Remix)

This is a remix of a Belgium Swiss dance track by a German acid house duo, making it the most European shit ever. I have a problem with Yello. The problem is that whenever I buy any of their singles I listen to them once and then listen to my remixes of “Oh Yeah” ad nasuem until I have dreams that Ferris Bueller is going to take me on a magical Chicagoland adventure where one of my best friends eventually tries to kill himself but it all somehow works out in the end. Oh, and Jennifer Grey shows up, but she has her old nose still so I know who the hell she is. Yeah, anyways, this is NOT that song, it’s a different song that was also on Stella. Good track, good remixes, especially the first one. These have a few scratches on them, but nothing severe.

‘Yellow Magic’ Just Sounds Gross Though

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

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.