Released 25 September 1979 Release date 25 September 1979 | Length 32:23 Label Alfa Records | |
 | ||
Producer Haruomi HosonoKunihiko Murai & Shōrō Kawazoe (Executives) Genres Techno, Rock music, Electropop, Electronic dance music, Electro, World music, Electronic music Similar Yellow Magic Orchestra albums, Electropop albums | ||
Solid State Survivor is the second album by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, released in 1979. Solid State Survivor was never released in the United States, but many of the songs from this album were compiled for release in the States as the US pressing of ×∞Multiplies (1980), including the tracks "Behind the Mask", "Rydeen", "Day Tripper", and "Technopolis". Solid State Survivor is only one of a handful of YMO albums in which the track titles do not have a Japanese equivalent.
Contents
The album was an early example of synthpop, a genre that the band helped pioneer alongside their earlier album Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978), and it also contributed to the development of techno. Solid State Survivor won the Best Album Award at the 22nd Japan Record Awards, and it sold two million records. Several songs from the album have continued to be widely covered and sampled.
Technopolis ymo
Overview
Solid State Survivor contains some of Yellow Magic Orchestra's best-known songs, including "Rydeen", which combines Eastern and Western musical styles, in addition to drawing from animal sounds, particularly the rhythms of a running horse. "Rydeen" was often sampled or covered in early chiptune and video game music, including Sega's Super Locomotive (1982), Rabbit Software's Trooper Truck (1983), ZUN's Touhou: Highly Responsive to Prayers (1996), and the Martin Galway soundtracks for Ocean Software's Daley Thompson's Decathlon (1984) and Superior Software's Stryker's Run (1986).
The album is also known for "Behind the Mask", which YMO had first produced in 1978 for a Seiko quartz wristwatch commercial. The song has had numerous cover versions produced by other artists, most notably Michael Jackson. Alongside Quincy Jones, Jackson produced a slightly more dance-funk version of the techno classic with additional lyrics, originally intended for his best-selling album Thriller (1982). Despite the approval of songwriter Sakamoto and lyricist Chris Mosdell, it was eventually removed from the Thriller album due to legal issues with Yellow Magic Orchestra's management. Nevertheless, various cover versions were later performed by Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton (with Phillinganes as part of his backing band), Orbital, and The Human League, among others, before Jackson's cover version eventually appeared on his posthumous Michael album in 2010. Brian Eno also produced a remix of YMO's original version in 1992.
"Technopolis" is considered an "interesting contribution" to the development of techno, specifically Detroit techno, as it used the term "techno" in its title, was a tribute to Tokyo as an electronic mecca, and foreshadowed concepts that Juan Atkins and Rick Davis would later have with Cybotron. "Technopolis" was later sampled in Robert Hood's "Rhythm" from his debut minimal techno album Minimal Nation (1994), and in Electric Youth's "Replay" (2008). Techno-pop artist Aira Mitsuki pays homage to this track with her single Sayonara Technopolis, and her music video for "GALAXY BOY" is heavily inspired by that of Technopolis.
The album's title song "Solid State Survivor" is a new wave synth rock song. The popular anime series Dragon Ball Z later paid homage to the song and the album with the song "Solid State Scouter" as the theme song of the 1990 television special Dragon Ball Z: Bardock – The Father of Goku.
This was YMO's most successful album in Japan. It was the best selling album in the Oricon LP Chart for 1980, beating Chiharu Matsuyama's Kishōtenketsu (起承転結?) - Godiego's Magic Monkey (西遊記, Saiyūki) was best seller for 1979. In 1980 the album won a Best Album Award (ベスト・アルバム賞, Besuto Arubamu Shō) in the 22nd Japan Record Awards. The album went on to sell two million records worldwide.
Personnel
Songs
1Technopolis4:15
2Absolute Ego Dance4:38
3Rydeen4:27