Episode 5: Exploring Solid State Survivor by Yellow Magic Orchestra

In this episode of Home Records (Part 2), Slice and Emily continue their deep dive into the world of Haruomi Hosono—this time zooming out to explore his groundbreaking supergroup, Yellow Magic Orchestra. They trace the evolution from Hosono’s solo work into the bold, futuristic sound of YMO, unpacking how this collaboration helped redefine what pop music could be.

They explore the band’s pioneering use of synthesizers and playful, genre-bending production that made YMO feel so revolutionary—both in Japan and around the world. Along the way, they reflect on how discovering Hosono first shaped their experience of hearing YMO, and share personal stories about tracking down these records in Japan and connecting the dots between artist and supergroup.

Whether you’re following along from Part 1 or jumping in fresh, join them for a conversation that’s part music history, part discovery—and a deeper look at how one artist’s vision expanded into something even bigger.

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Find us at @emilymyersmusic and @theslicemusic.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Hi, I'm Slice.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And I'm Emily.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And welcome to another episode of Home Records, the podcast where we, two married musicians, pick an album at random from our 2000 piece find a collection and discuss its personal and cultural importance.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

I'm excited about this one.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yes, so this is uh just getting right into it. This is kind of the part two from our uh previous episode where we discussed uh the artist, uh the Japanese artist Harumi Hosono and his album Hosono's House. Yeah, so why uh tell everyone why we wanted to do a part two of this of this So I f I think it's because there's another there's another group that Hosono was involved with, also another seminal record that I think is very important to talk about um in this historical context. You know, when in our last episode we talked about going to Japan, we visited, we went there for our honeymoon, and uh I did quite a bit of record shopping, and the record we're talking about today was actually one of the primary records I was looking for from Hirumi Hosono's uh other group that he formed called Yellow Magic Orchestra, or otherwise known as YMO.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Which that, to be honest, I I did not really know a lot about Harumi Hosono at all, but I did know of YMO. I had heard of that, and so I feel like you know, if a lot of Americans are listening to this, they may have had some name recognition of that group.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, they would have been more maybe more familiar, uh depending on what side of Japanese music you're coming from or what side of music in general, because YMO was a synthpop outfit. And um, I first actually heard about this album from uh YouTuber music critic Anthony Fantano. He talked about this record in a classic review, and so that's how I came across it. And um, yeah, it's one of those synthpop uh it's not even I wouldn't even say say it's like a synth pop gem, it's kind of more than that. You know, it's very it's considered a very influential album for a lot of different music genres.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Which, like, just to reflect back on our part one, if you remember him as a solo artist, that record was very folk rock, almost like Hawaiian influenced.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Well, it's very exotica influenced. Yes. And and that's uh the trajectory he continued for his next few solo records, including his second solo album called Tropical Dandy, which is one of my favorites, and then he released, you know, a couple other records like that. He sort of slowly delved into, you know, more synthesizer electronic music, you know, very influenced by crowd rock bands like Kraft Work.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, and this is a totally different genre. This is all electronic music, which is a very interesting genre that I don't know a lot about. So I'm excited about this and excited to kind of keep diving deeper on an artist that we've talked about. Um which do you feel like is bigger? Do you feel like him as a solo artist is bigger or YMO is bigger?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Um, it depends who you talk to because here's the thing um all the members of YMO are huge, they're all very well known and all very influential. It was kind of a super group because this is how YMO came to be is that all the members of YMO, they were all part of this collective of studio musicians in Japan called Tin Pan Alley. Rumi Hosono was primarily a bass player, and then you had uh the second member, Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was a keyboard player primarily, and then you had uh Yukihiro Takahashi, the third member of YMO, who was a drummer. So they all played on uh records for various uh Japanese artists, and then they also collaborated on each other's uh records. Ryuichi Sakamoto put out his first solo record before uh joining YMO, and I believe uh Hosono is on it, and Takahashi was involved in it in a in a little bit too, and that that's a great record as well. And uh you can hear what Takahashi also did an album, uh his first solo album, which was actually more French pop influenced.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Yeah, it's also a really great record. They all and so they were all pre-established by the time that uh they came together, and Hosono was kind of the uh driving force in the sense of like he got everybody together, said, Hey, we want to do the synth pop electronic music thing, you know, and everyone was into the idea. And so um, you know, they they uh made their first album, which was uh self-titled, and it had a song on it called Firecracker, which was actually a cover of uh by an artist named Martin Denny, who was an exotica uh performer back in the early 60s, and um and which was so who Osono was obsessed with at the time, and so they did an electronic version of that song, and it ended up becoming uh kind of a hit in the States, actually, and it was sampled by hip-hop artists and hip-hop DJs used it for break beats, and you know, is using a lot of utilizing a lot of breakdancing culture. So that's how that was kind of the first bug of YMO really coming to prominence, but really it's this album that we're talking about, Solid State Survivor, that really became uh as a whole, like their most influential album. And for many, again, for many different music genres and fields, which uh you'll be hearing us talk about today.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

And so, one of the things before we dive really deep into that album, one thing I love about this podcast is as you know, we're not only podcast hosts, but we're also individual musicians uh ourselves, and we're also married. So the really fun thing about this record, some of our records have really fun stories as to how uh Slice got them or certain things about them. And this one to me is my favorite story about how you got a record because I happened to be there because it was on our honeymoon.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Well, when we were planning going to Japan, one of the uh one of the things I was planning on doing was visiting Tower Records in Shibuya, which is in Tokyo. And because I, you know, I knew YMO was very well regarded in Japan. So um, you know, the second or third day we were in Tokyo, we went to visit Tower Records, and I pretty much bought nearly every YMO record. They had all of them, including this one, Solid State Survivor. And uh they also had some Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuchi Sakamoto solo records. Didn't really find much Hosono stuff, too. Some of his stuff is really hard to come by for some reason.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Well, let's dive into this record. Um, so for me, this record is unlike anything I've ever heard, and maybe that's because this is probably one of the first electronic albums I've personally listened to. Um, but it's also interesting because it's kind of half instrumental. They do a few covers of some English songs, so a little bit of his of it is in English.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

The original songs have the English lyrics on them.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

And so, you know, explain to people like me and maybe someone listening who isn't really familiar with electronic music why this was such an influential record and such a big leap in that genre.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I mean, you kind of have to hear it to kind of uh understand it, but at least the best I could put into words is you know, you listen to this record. This came this was made and came out in 78, 79. So synthpop was just starting to, you know, become a force in popular music. You had, you know, like it's mentioned before, you had craft work, you had um some pioneering artists like Gary Newman, um, artists that were coming out of the post-punk scene, like Joy Division, and bands that were utilizing, you know, um electronics in their um, you know, in their sound, in their pop songs. And um and and YMO were were kind of leading that charge, but sort of coming from a from a very different place. And their their songs, I think some people would call it techno, or they would they uh or what hip artists would think about techno would come from this record, you know, but they also were you know trying to create pop songs in an inventive new way, and one of the things I always say too with this record is that it was influenced, like their last record, on video game music, but in a lot of ways they influenced a lot of later video game music in the 80s, you know, and to that point, um, you know, there was a big movement starting to happen around that time period called City Pop in Japan, and that was where you had these artists that were making these very like very slick, very smooth, sort of yacht-rockish, jazzy rock type of music. And YMO wasn't entirely city pop, but the sounds they were using were used in a lot of city pop records, and like I said, they were all kind of collaborating with each other and they all collaborated, played on art on records from those city pop artists, too. So everything was very so yeah, everything was sort of you know kind of happening at once, but I think it was this record that really solidified YMO in terms of their sound, in terms of their influence. You know, they made a few other records later on that kind of went into more pop ish territory, not so much city pop, but more like synth pop, even more so than this than this record.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

You know, music always reflects the culture. It just it just does. That's one thing that I love about it is it if you can always learn more about the culture of a place by listening to the music that comes out of there. And in Japan, you know, there's the arcade district if you ever get a chance to visit. And literally every section of that area in Tokyo is filled with arcades, it's filled with anime, it's filled with Pokemon, it's filled with all these things, and you can so like you can understand why music like this that sounds like video games. It just reminds us so much of that electronic, fast-paced kind of feel would come out of a place like that. It just makes a lot of sense to me. One thing that is always interested to me, you know, I'm someone that's in I I make country, I make Americana music, and so the kind of the focus in those genres is live instruments when you're recording. And so one thing that I think is interesting is obviously in electronic music, you're using drum loops, you're losing synthesizers, you're losing, you're using, you know, all of these electronic things that are not real people. I'm curious from a recording standpoint how that changes the creative process.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Well, the but the here's the thing this is early electronic music, so they didn't do any of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Oh, that oh, I want to know more about that. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, there were no sequencers really at that point. There were no sequencers, everything had to be playing real time. Like I said, Akahashi was a drummer, so he played real drums, and they had invented an inversion of this thing that Kraftwerk invented, which were like these kind of drums that you played with. It was like an electronic drum that you lit that you physically played, and that's what created that sort of electronic sound. And to to kind of further explain it, um YMO, when they would go out to play live, there's a great um concert film they did um that's on YouTube from the Greek Theater in LA. And the thing was when they played live, you know, they they there was actually kind of a fourth um sort of unsung hero of of YMO, and his job was to because they were still using old modular Moge synthesizers, they were still using the type of synthesizers that you had to literally switch inputs and output cables to get a specific sound for a specific part of the song, and so they needed somebody to to work that in real time, so while they were while they were playing the keyboards. So, and um I'll tell you real quick, yeah, and that person was named Hideki Matsutake, um, who was pro uh who is uh on this record credited as microcomposer programming. So he was literally moving cables around so that everyone could play the sounds that they needed to in real time.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

That's fascinating because I would imagine if you're making electronic music today, it is not like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Not necessarily, you know, everything can be sequenced and programmed pretty quickly. You can copy and paste things pretty pretty quickly, you know, but there was none of that. Everything was still analog. There was no digital. Like, like we still didn't have digital recording by that point, you know?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

So they I think this is fascinating. If you're listening and you you've never been in a recording studio, like even what I do, which is a lot more live, it's not electronic at all, we'll even take things and like copy and paste vocal sections, like a real voice in different spots if needed. So like the idea that something that sounds so electronic, that's so video game based, is all done live essentially, and that's a performance that's captured. That's a really, really interesting thought if you've seen that process of kind of being able to loop drums and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

I mean, looping really wasn't a thing. I mean, you had sequencers in some ways, but you couldn't loop sequencers. You had to play, you had to, if you had something that had an arpigiator on it, the because that's what what really existed before sequencers was arpigiators, you still had to play that for as long as the recording lasted. You know, you couldn't just hit but hit a button and and let it be automatic. I mean, some for some ARPs you could do it because that's what's well they are ARPs, but you still had to like record them to tape in real time with everything else going on. Yeah. You know, you again we didn't have you know digital interfaces or anything like that. Everything was still analog. Yeah. So and because you know, this band, you know, they're very perfectionist about you know their compositions and the way things sounded, you know. So it took I say it took some time to make this record, but really they just worked all hours of the day, I think, on this album, you know, and that's why it came out so so perfect, pretty much, you know. Um I love it.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

I okay, I want to know specifically about the songs. Do you have a favorite on the record?

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Um, I think well, uh the funny thing for me is that I think my favorites are actually the usual suspects for this record.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

So that is unusual that you're picking the usual the usual hits.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Well, I think in some regards, these are also the most influential ones, though, or the ones that have, you know, kind of made the the most uh the most impact, um, being the third track, Rydeen, which uh which was actually the first Hawaiimo song I ever heard. And because when I heard it, I'm like, this is Sonic the Hedgehog. You know, it is literally Sonic the Hedgehog.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

It really is. Well, and that's so we never talk about what our favorite tracks are before we start recording. And I wrote down my favorite track was number three, right now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Yeah, it is such a memorable melody, you know, and it it uses all those synthesizers that are like, yeah, that pretty much is the sound of video games for like the next 10 years, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, and it has like this interesting, like I put I put down, it has like this interesting, like swooshing sound that I just hadn't ever quite heard before. And I think once when music is purely instrumental or electronic like this, I feel like that's the part that makes me go, huh, that's really really interesting, is if it's a sound that I qu I haven't quite heard yet.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

And that's I think something that gets like I'm not as hip to a lot of modern EDM, but I just kind of feel, and this is maybe from my own ignorant opinion, is that you know, I feel like melody gets kind of uh waylaid a bit in modern EDM, you know. Yeah, I don't I mean there's some electronic music artists that I heard that like that kept pretty intact, but it's something kind I kind of miss, which is probably why I don't gravitate towards it as much. It's like it's nice to hear a dance beat and a track, but it's like I need some sort of melody to kind of latch on to.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

And this has that motif.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

It has that, yeah, in all the songs, in all the songs, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Which is such a funny word to use because motif is a very classical word that they use to talk about a melody that repeats over and over again. It's kind of like the way we think of hooks and pop music. Well, that's the thing. But that's exactly what this is.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Well, you because uh because Ryuchi Sakamoto was was kind of raised up on classical. I think out of all the three, he's probably the most like classical based uh composer, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

So he probably would have thought about that in terms of kind of creating these songs.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah, he was definitely the most composition-based uh songwriter of the group, I would say. Um although ironically, this one song was written by Yukihiro Takahashi. He actually wrote this, and he but he's also very like, I think, kind of kind of the best of both words. He's kind of the middle ground between pop song and composition, you know. And that's the thing, because they all have that composer sensibility. I think Osono comes the most from the pop world because he was in, you know, the rock bands and he grew up on the Beatles, you know, and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

So And this record is only eight songs long. It's a f it's four four songs on the first side, four songs on the second side. Like it's pretty, pretty short in terms of albums in today's standards for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Well, it took a long time to make, uh, like I was kind of alluding to before. So it's like uh if we could get it in an album is worth, you know, then we would have uh done our bit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

And the other thing that's really interesting is there are covers of American rock tunes. There's Day Tripper on this.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

And actually, that's the only one. That's the only American song on the actually not American, it's British.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

But it is behind the mask, though. Okay, so that's another cover, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Nope. So Behind the Mask, um, it's funny because um I teach songwriting or I teach music um as my day job. And um when we talk about production, we talk about uh demos and we talk about a little bit of electronic music and we talk about synthesizers, and I always bring up YMO. It's not in the curriculum, but I do it because you know it's the Lord's work, but I digress.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So I mean if you're gonna talk synthesizers from everything I've heard, they know they're synthesizers.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah, exactly. But I always I always come up to Behind the Mask when I'm talking about this, and I always leave off and saying, Yeah, Matt Behind the Mask has probably the most interesting shelf life of any song that any of of almost any song, really. So Behind the Mask, you know, on the record uh by YMO on Solid State Survivor, it's sung by uh Sakamoto through a vocoder, you know, and singing words in English, because there was a um the I think the lyricist is uh an American guy, Chris Mistell.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

So I think I think that's why I thought it was a cover.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

So that's the original version. Okay. Um so a few years later, this song actually um came across I I don't know exactly who it came across um that led to this, but it was actually um supposed to be recorded for by Michael Jackson for the album Thriller.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Oh, that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so so Michael did record a demo. Uh he rewrote the lyrics, uh, some of the lyrics, um, just to kind of I think match his vibe a bit more. And they were and they recorded a demo. The engineer, I think, basically he just took the original YMO track and just had um Michael singing over it, which it's mostly instrumental anyway, and you could have easily, you know, uh quite you know turned down that vocoder vocal. But um it didn't end up on thriller because uh there was some issue with the songwriting royalty distributions with Sakamoto because he wrote the music for it. So because of that, I think they just um you know they couldn't they couldn't uh come to an agreement for whatever reason at that time. That's interesting. So it was inevitably left off the album. Now the song you can actually find the demo of the song on one of the deluxe editions of Thriller, but they also did um do a uh fully produced version that ended up on the post-humous album Michael uh in 2010 that came out like a couple years after he had passed away. So you can hear a fully produced version of Behind the Mask by Michael Jackson.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Um can you imagine like having your song taken off the thriller record because they couldn't figure out how to pay you? Essentially, like that's what you're saying. I can't, I would be kicking myself for the rest of my life because Thriller is the top-selling album of all time, or at least it was non non-compilation, it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Non-compilation.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

I mean, oh my gosh. I mean, that paycheck would have been crazy.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

The funny thing is, to be fair, I mean, if you listen to even the demo, even if you listen to the uh completed posthumous production, it would I think, in my opinion, I think it would have been a bit out of place on Thriller compared to everything. Maybe it was meant to be anyway. Yeah, like I mean, he is definitely he was like, Oh yeah, I want to record it, I rewrote these lyrics, you know, but it would have definitely fell out of place, I think, compared to you know the other like Quincy Jones joints and things like that, and Rodman Temperton joints.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

But if that doesn't like help people understand how influential this record is, the fact that there was a song from it that was almost added to the thriller record, I feel like that is a great as someone who doesn't know a lot about it, to me that's that says a lot.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Well, yeah, but the story doesn't even end there. Um so it was left off Thriller, and one of the studio musicians that played on Thriller, worked on Thriller with Michael was a guy named Greg Filling Gaines, who has also worked with Stevie Wonder, and after his stint with Michael, uh went on to work with Eric Clapton. I think, in my opinion, well, I don't know this for sure, but I like to believe that Greg told Eric, like, yeah, I was working on Thriller, and uh, you know, we had this song, we didn't end up cutting it, or we didn't end up finishing it. Maybe you could do something with it. So Eric Clapton actually recorded a version of Behind the Mask with Michael's lyrics, and it ended up on a terrible album called August from the mid-80s. And when I mean terrible, I mean the cover his cover Behind the Mask is probably the best track on that album. That's you know, and the track is pretty good, but everything else is pretty terrible on that album. And I bought that album like a few months ago. Just for Behind the Mask.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

But we own it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

But we will not be talking about that album because the only thing worth talking about on that album is Behind the Mask. But yeah, Clapton's version is like I mean, it's basically Michael's version without the RB programming and things like that. Um, it definitely sounds a little off-putting hearing Clapton sing what Michael would have sung.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yeah, those are definitely not the same voices. No, they're not. They're very, very much.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

No, they're not. Yeah, so that's the very strange and interesting shelf life of behind the mask.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

You know, yeah. Oh, fascinating. I mean, this this whole record is really fascinating. The whole group is fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

I mean I mean they're all they're all incredible virtuosos, um not just instrumentally, but just compositionally, you know. And um, I mean, this is like the record that kind of really put them on the map. And one thing I will add because I like to, you know, we're talking about this record, but uh we're also I also want to talk about sort of the history of YMO a little a bit, you know, and its members, you know, we've alluded to it a little bit in the last episode. We're talking about Hosono's career, and he went on to do a lot of other different things later on, but um the record they made after this was actually uh a mini album. It's a title with a symbol, so uh, you know, and it w like I said, it was a mini album, but it was this weird album that had like this, like these jack Japanese comedy bits in between songs, and yeah, it's called Infinity Multiplies, which sounds like a math formula, anyways. So, but one of the most notable tracks from that album, that mini album, was a cover of Tighten Up by Archie Bell and the Drells, uh from like the from the sixties, you know, as a soul cover, and it was because of that cover that they became the first and I think only Japanese act to perform on Soul Train.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Now make sure everyone knows what Soul Train is.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Everyone knows what Soul Train is. But if you don't, if you live under a rock like my wife, um I know what Soul Train is now because I married you.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

My point stands.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Um but yes, the uh the pinnacle of soul music on television, soul artists perform and for and and audiences dance to soul music. There have only ever been, I think, kind of before that, two uh non-African American artists on there, and that was Average White Band, the Scottish Funk Group, and David Bowie. Yeah. They both perform. Oh no, I'm that's uh there's actually three. Also, um Elton John performing Benny and the Jets, because that was a number one RB record.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

And Soul Train had the potential to break an artist, it just introduced it to so many people. The same way our our talk show performances do now. Like if you perform on SNL, it would be the equivalent of doing that.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Pretty much, you know. The funny thing about Soul Train, although it is like it's it was kind of like American Bandstand where you kind of lip sync to your track things like that. It there were some exceptions, but uh YMO were slightly uh slated to perform on there, and they performed Tighten Up and Firecracker, and that was like, you know, that I think that was kind of what really um excuse me, solidified their influence on on hip-hop, really, because hip-hop was just kind of starting out in the mainstream at that point. Um, not necessarily like the real hip-hop acts, there were still manufactured hip-hop, but YMO really kind of solidified their place because yeah, it was like people dancing to it like they would dance to breakbeats, you know. So YMO continued making records, and then you know, they kind of broke up and then they reformed a few years a few times over the years. But Hosono continued making music, he made continued making sit-pop, he made ambient music, he made um you know boogie-woogie music, yeah, country music, blues music, you know, he dabbled in pretty much everything you can think of. Ryichi Sakamono went on to do film scores, most notably winning the Oscar for doing the score for The Last Emperor, along with David Byrne, and he also did Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which the theme of that film is probably the most right one of the most recognizable film score melodies of all time, and they still play it during the holidays in some commercials and things like that here and there. And Takahashi continued collaborating with them on and off and continued doing his own records as well. So they all had very fruitful and you know kept themselves very busy throughout their lives. Um Sakamoto and Takahashi passed away a few years ago, but Osono's still around, and he's um he's actually been kind of embracing more of um of uh the sort of renewed interest in a lot of his older catalog, including YMO. And he's done he he still does some YMO songs live occasionally whenever he does perform, but he's definitely I think embraced the younger crowd and younger audiences that have become interested in his music, and especially because during the lockdown, City Pop kind of had a resurgence uh because of TikTok. And again, even though YMO was not entirely exactly City Pop, they were still there while that was all happening and they were still part of the records being made, you know, as individuals.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

I feel like if I could pick one word for this group, it would be reinvention, you know. And I think like just Hosono going from the record we talked about last episode, which is very folk rock, to something that is so electronic and influential in both genres, both worlds. And I think, you know, just on a personal level, you know, I just am curious, like, have you ever felt the need to reinvent yourself musically like that?

SPEAKER_01 29:24

I think it I think it all felt like a natural progression, especially if you listen to all the albums, all of his albums, um, leading up to YMO, because um, I think it was probably by um there were two records. I mean, because he did the um tropical trilogy, the exotica trilogy, excuse me, of Tropical Dandy, um Bon Voyage, and then the third one, Pariso, which was the first time he had worked with Takahashi and Sakamoto, because that was credited as Hurumi Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band. And that was where we started here synthesizers, but he also did was dabbling with synthesizers on another collaborative record before that called Cochin Moon. And so it was it was like, yeah, he was becoming curious about synthesizers because it was new technology at the time, and because Japan has always been seen as or at some point they were kind of regarded as being on the cutting edge of technology. So I think it was just this natural curiosity of you know what can what we can use to make music that really led to the reinvention. So I don't know, I don't think it necessarily was uh reinvention for the sake of reinvention. I think it was more of just being curious about, you know, what is possible. And Sakamoto was also, I think, in that it like he was he was the first one to kind of take that on with his first his first solo record specifically, you know, and that kind of I think naturally coalesced into the three of them getting together to do this YMO thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

One thing I've loved like in my career is is meeting different musicians and figuring out what is it that that moves them to create things. Like for me, I think it it was it's always you know trying to figure out a way to ex express emotion. And so I feel like I'm always drawn to storytelling and very lyric driven. Um, but I'm I'm so interested in people like these artists who I think are driven by a curiosity of sound. Like, what if I can make this kind of sound or this is in my head? What what equipment do I use to make that? Um, because it's such a different way of approaching music, and it's it's just fascinating. In a lot of ways, it's what uh moves production forward.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

And I agree with that, and I think you know, you look at music from many different cultures, you will the more you listen and the more you kind of dig into it, the more you understand the different mindsets that exist within different cultures and sort of their not just their reasons for making music, but just you know, their approach and how they are attempting to achieve what they want to. And that's why YMO kind of sticks out a little bit more, why they're sort of a little bit separated from the city pop, because city pop is is about like escapism, it's sort of this very futuristic um optimist type of uh idea, which never really quite existed, maybe in some form, in some ways, but you know it it it wasn't that was kind of what it is. It was there was a nostalgic element to it, and that's the one thing I think that YMO actually doesn't have that that City Pop does, is they they don't have like sort of that nostalgic factor. There's nothing nostalgic sounding about YMO's records. I think that's the big I think that's the big difference because YMO, you know, it sounds now, it sounds it sounds like the future. I think musically it sounds a lot like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah, it either sounds modern or even futuristic.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

And and that's you know, because it's electronic and it also it also doesn't have a lot of the sort of jazzy um or jazz rock type of uh chord progressions and sounds that City Pop has. It was definitely more kind of pop music based. That's also a fundamental difference as well. I've been listening to a lot of city pop lately, so I've been it's top of mind. Yeah, yeah, and actually it's kind of helped uh me kind of figure out how that discerns from what YMO and and the and sort of their camp were uh creating at that same exact time.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

So I want to ask you about the cover, because the cover is one very Japanese, which I love. Um I love the colors in it, and they're the three band members, but then there are these two other characters. Are they mannequins? Like they look like dolls.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

They're mannequins. Okay, they're mannequins. Um on a side note, I do want to highlight as well. There is also another unsung hero of the uh Wine Mo camp. And um, she's not necessarily featured on this album, but she does participate with the band live, and that's uh Akiko Yano, who um would be married to Sakamoto uh not too long after this, but she's also an incredible artist in her own right, and she was one of the one of the touring keyboardists for YMO around the time that this album was made. If you haven't heard her records, definitely check them out. And like I said, you know, definitely check out the discography of all the members of YMO. There's it's such a rabbit hole, which is why, you know, when we went to Japan and I went to Tower Records, I pretty much scoured, you know, finding all the YMO records, as many Sakamoto records, uh Takahashi records, and yet they had no Asono. I had to I thought that was the white whale. That was the white whale, which we in fact, yeah, and um listen to our previous episode if you haven't already to uh hear that story.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Well, you know, I'm gonna say something a little controversial. I personally am probably not a big electronic music person.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

I really am not either, but I kind of put this in more of the synth pop canon, uh which which I'm a huge fan of.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Yeah, I was gonna say like synthpop. If someone's listening and they're not really into like EDM or electronica, like why would you still say, hey, give this one a shot? Give this record a shot.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I mean, uh there's a there's there's two reasons for that. One of them is because, you know, I think it's important to I think now more than ever to embrace the music of other cultures. And if you're gonna look for a record that you feel like has some common ground with what you're already familiar with and what you've heard, this would be the record to start off with, you know, with Solid State Survivor by Yellow Magic Orchestra. I think it's definitely this album. There's definitely other incredible Japanese artists that have also made their splash. Hosono's discography, you know, it's so rich. Some of it's hard to come by, a lot of it's on YouTube, not on streaming, but a lot of that is great. And if you're into classical or film scores, Sakamoto's um Sakamoto's discography is great for that. Takahashi's done a lot of different things, so definitely get into him. Don't sleep on him. I have a few of his records I still need to get through. But this is kind of where everything just coalesced all at once into a really great and uh memorable, memorable piece of art.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

I really love what you said about you know not being, you know, being aware of other cultures' music. In our very first episode, we did Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen, and and we said multiple times in that episode, if I had to show anyone a record and you know, just to introduce them to American culture, this would be probably top on my list. And I really feel like if you feel that way about Japanese culture and understanding the kind of music that is there, because music again is always an example, it's always a reflection of the culture that's there. Probably this record and the last record we talked to are some of the ones that I would share.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

Well, what I would also add, too, is that they are that, but they're also kind of subversion of that, too. Because, and I said this in the previous episode talking about Hosono's house, is that um a lot of Japanese culture in terms of art had kind of been lost or really kind of put to the side because of the effects of World War II. So people were trying to find their identity uh as Japanese artists because before Hosono's house, and really actually before Harumi Hosono's second group, Happy End, rock bands, Japanese rock bands would sing in English, you know, they would sing in English. Even I think uh Hosono's first band, April Fool, they would primarily sing in English, but then when Happy End came around, they're like, No, we're gonna sing in Japanese, because up to that point that was the argument. But then when once Happy End had some success, their second album is considered sort of the proto, the catalyst, actually, rather, of city pop, even though it was psychedelic rock or folk rock. But that was the album, those were the the Happy End was the band that kind of laid that argument to rest, and that was when all the Japanese musicians kind of came up and said, Oh, we can be ourselves, we can do this while also being influenced by Western music. You know, we try to find our identity, and that's really what's made Hosono's work, um, solo work really subversive in that way, is like there's that influence of the West, but it's also flirting with Japanese identity or that the exotica thing, you know, where it's really um subverting uh uh you know Pacific Islander identity, and he would go on to do that in various other projects, especially the album Pacifica that he did with uh uh one of the artists was on that was Tatsura Yamashida, who is the king of City Pop, you know. And so if you listen to that record, that's kind of the Proto uh City Pop record. So that's what that's one of the most interesting things, I think, when you're when we're looking at this record, because again, there's a Beatles cover on here, Day Tripper. They were all huge Beatles, you know. So you're gonna find things familiar, but you're also gonna be having your expectations subverted, you know. It's you know, we we think of J-pop and K-pop these days, you know, with BTS and Pink Panther S and you know, Blackpink, all these groups, you know. Well, and and some of them were some of them are K-pop. There's also Korean City pop, which is a whole other thing, but even some of that is the same as simil has similarities to Japanese city pop, but it all really starts with this record Stall Estate Survivor and a lot of the Hosono stuff.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

Well, and I think there's a lot of um there's a lot of probably American audiences who don't understand, you know, current modern Japanese artists.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

A lot of English speaking audiences.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Yeah, exactly. And I I think, you know, I think one of the things that I love about Japanese culture is they have preserved their traditional music so well. So I think a lot of people have an understanding of what kind of traditional Japanese music sounds like, but to know what like the youth are creating today and what people who are um pushing music in that culture today, what they're trying to do, I think it's really I think it's really important to be up to date on that and to understand to understand it and to understand that it's not um it's not coming from just traditional Japanese music, it's coming from um a lot of different inspirations, including the West, including different things that they're experiencing in their own worlds. And I think I think that all that's really important, and you can hear that on these records.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

But that's actually kind of the reinvention that happened because um in it um you know, in those happy end days, because Hosono said himself it felt like there was like it's not that there wasn't traditional Japanese culture, it just felt like because World War II kind of you know created this uh separation of generations um in an obvious way. Uh that's why by the by the mid-late sixties they felt very disconnected from that. And I think there's been efforts to try to preserve that even more now than ever. But at that time, you know, people were still recovering, they were still like 10 to 15 years away from their own economic boom, too. Right. So they were so Japanese artists were looking for well, the only identity they felt like they could rely on was Western music. And until Happy End came around, then that's when it felt like we could create our own new identity as Japanese people to this popular music that was happening.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

So that's a little bit about YMO's record.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Yep, and Solid State Survivor.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

And I hope, you know, I hope there are some people who have never heard of this record, and maybe it was really interesting to learn about something probably really different and from a different culture, even. Um, we always end our episodes with two of the same questions every time. Um and the first one, you know, really the only cre the only um prereq for the records we cover is that it is in some way influential to the culture. Um it can be from any genre, it can be from any time period, but for some reason we think that it has changed music history in some way. So that's my qu that's one of our questions that we always end on is why does Solid State Survivor matter to the culture?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

And uh I will say it again because reiterating it is very important, especially for an album like this, you know. It influenced synth pop, it influenced hip hop, it influenced video game music, and all the members of YMO have been influential in their own in their own unique ways, pre and post YMO. You know, and as far as Japanese music, this is you know, I mean, we we you go to Tower Records in really any Tower Records, but we're going to the one in Shibuya, and in the vinyl section of popular music, one uh YMO and its respective members take up an entire wall.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Yeah. That that's which is unlike any other artist. That that is unique.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

That yeah, really it's YMO. Um, you also have some of the city pop guys like Yamashida and And um and and and art other artists like that for sure. Although I I mean I wasn't paying attention to City Pops, I was just focused on YMO at the time. So if I went back there and took a second glance, I'm sure I would find them too.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

YMO had its own corner, it was its own giant wall display. Like it was just different than the other groups for sure.

SPEAKER_01 44:17

It really was, you know, and and incidentally, um, they've actually began to reissue the YMO albums, or actually not even reissue, issue for the very first time the YMO albums in the States, some of them. So now you can find them as non-imports, which is really incredible, and I think a testament to, you know, this again, this renewed interest in City Pop, but just this renewed interest in what they're doing, especially again with Hosono, you know, kind of embracing young, you know, the his older work and its interests with young younger audiences. So that's why it's I consider this record and this group and its respective members immensely uh influential.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

And then the last question of our podcast episode is always why should someone take a chance? Why should they listen to the record? If they haven't listened to this record before, you know, why would they take some time out of their week this week to maybe check it out?

SPEAKER_01 45:15

I think, you know, I think in this record there is a little bit of something for everybody. And, you know, if anyone has ever been interested in Japanese music, this is a great, great, great starting point. And you know, that was the thing, is I I found out about this record only a few years ago, and it only took this album to really get down a rabbit hole of so many different albums.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

You are in a rabbit hole, I feel like, of this of these artists for the world. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Yeah, of Japanese music at in that time period, you know. You'll hear familiar things, you'll hear the origins of a lot of what later became video music and influences in techno and hip hop, and you know, it's it's just it's such an enriching world of music, you know. And if you are really interested in enriching yourselves in a world outside of the terrible one we are all living in currently, some more than others, then I think this would be your very a very fun curiosity.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yeah, I would say for me, I would I would tell someone this this record will help stretch your mind as far as what is possible sonically. Um, I think it for me it just made me go, wow, I haven't thought about using that sound before, or wow, I haven't heard things put in that way before. I think that is a very uh cool thing for a record to do. And then also just culturally, like we said earlier, I think it's really important for people to hear music from different cultures and understand different cultural perspectives. I just think like overall this music will expand what you think is possible.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

And that's what I'm looking forward to in this podcast, too. There will be uh many moments um where we will be exploring records from other cultures, from other countries, you know, you know, and and just not not only how influential the record was for that culture itself, but how they have some have some have had some influence in Western music or in other cultures per se, you know. And there are of course artists that have made records, English speaking artists that have that have utilized the sounds of other cultures and countries in their own work, and we'll be talking about that too. And that's kind of the overall idea. You know, it's a pretty open uh open territory of where the music comes from that we will talk about on uh on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 47:48

Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of Home Records. We just want to say we've loved sharing this new adventure with you guys. Thank you for showing your support, telling us what records you want us to cover. This has been a really fun new journey for us.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yes, and uh, if you like what you've been hearing, uh you could follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever podcasts are available. And if you also like to show your support even further, just please give us a five-star review on uh whatever platform you listen in, and just be sure to spread the word to all your friends and family and enemies. So thank you once again, and uh we'll see you in the next episode.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Bye, guys.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Bye.