Yellow Magic Orchestra (album)

Production

The album was intended to be a one-off project for producer and bass player Haruomi Hosono and the two session musicians he had hired: drummer Yukihiro Takahashi and keyboard player Ryuichi Sakamoto. The trio were to create their own cover version of Martin Denny's 1959 exotica melody "Firecracker" with modern electronics, as a subversion of the exoticisation and Orientalism of the original tune, along with various original compositions also exploring themes of Asianness, exoticisation and Orientalism from a Japanese perspective. The album would eventually be called Yellow Magic Orchestra, as a satire of Japan's obsession with black magic at the time. The project proved highly popular, culminating in a career for the three musicians; one that would last until 1983, before successful solo careers and reunions over the decades to come.

They began recording the album in July 1978 at a Shibaura studio in Tokyo. It utilized a wide variety of electronic music equipment (as well as electric), including the Korg PS-3100 polyphonic synthesizer, the Moog III-C and Minimoog monosynths, the Polymoog and ARP Odyssey analog synthesizers, the Oberheim Eight-Voice synthesizer, the Fender Rhodes electric piano, the Korg VC-10 vocoder, a Yamaha acoustic drumkit combined with the Syn-Drums electronic drum kits, and the Fender Jazz Bass. It was also the earliest known popular music album to use the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer, which was programmed by Hideki Matsutake during recording sessions. Roland called the MC-8 a "computer music composer" and it was the first stand-alone microprocessor-based music sequencer. It also introduced features such as a keypad to enter note information and 16 kilobytes of random access memory which allowed a maximum sequence length of 5200 notes, a huge step forward from the 8-16 step sequencers of the era. At the time, Billboard noted that the use of such computer-based technology in conjunction with synthesizers allowed Yellow Magic Orchestra to create new sounds that were not possible until then. The band later described both the MC-8 and its programmer Hideki Matsutake as an "inevitable factor" in both their music production and live performances. Besides the electronic equipment, the only acoustic instruments used in the album were a Steinway piano and marimba percussion instrument.

The album was an early example of synthpop, a genre that Yellow Magic Orchestra helped pioneer. It was also an early example of a computer-themed album, predating Kraftwerk's Computer World (1981) by three years. Yellow Magic Orchestra experiments with different styles of electronic music, such as Asian melodies played over synthpop backings in "Firecracker" and "Cosmic Surfin'", the extensive use of video game sounds in "Computer Game", and the electronic disco bass in "Tong Poo", a song that was inspired by Chinese music produced during the China's Cultural Revolution, and in turn influenced video game music such as Tetris. Both "Computer Game" tracks proper contain the same audio and were made to sound as if both games were being played in the same room; each track being from the perspective of its titular arcade game unit: Circus and Space Invaders. The song also samples the opening chiptune used in the arcade game Gun Fight (1975). Both Circus and Space Invaders, along with several other popular arcade video games, were also featured in the promotional film for "Tong Poo".

The titles for several songs on the B-side are based on Jean-Luc Godard film names. “Tong Poo” is the Cantonese title for Le Vent d'est. “La Femme Chinoise” is La Chinoise with “femme” (the French word for “woman”) added after the feminine definite article “la.” Finally, “Mad Pierrot” is an English translation of 気狂いピエロ (Kichigai Piero), the title under which Pierrot le fou was released in Japan.

Release history

The album was first released in Japan in 1978. It was released in the US on 30 May 1979 by A&M Records on the Horizon label with a new mix by Al Schmitt, new cover art and a slightly different track listing. This "US version" was subsequently released in Japan on 25 July 1979 by Alfa. Promotional A&M copies were pressed on yellow vinyl. A&M Records also released the album across Europe and Canada that same year. In 2004, both versions were re-issued together on a 2-CD set in the United Kingdom by Epic Records.

"Firecracker" was released as a single under the name "Computer Game". As such, on early US pressings of the album, "Computer Game 'Theme from The Circus'" and "Firecracker" were combined as one track, while the firecracker sound effect at the end of the track was indexed by itself as "Firecracker". This was corrected on later pressings. US pressings also featured a more American-friendly mixing (highlighting a punchier equalization and heavy use of reverb). Several of the segues on the second side of the album were edited differently, while "Bridge over Troubled Music" was given an additional electric piano solo over top of the introductory percussion.

Personnel

Computer Game / Firecracker

The song "Firecracker" was released as a single in Japan in 1978 and in the United States and United Kingdom in 1979, becoming a major R&B hit in the United States. The same year, the song was released as the "Computer Game" single, which combined the "Computer Game" and "Firecracker" tracks together. The "Computer Game" single was an even greater international success, selling over 400,000 copies in the United States and entering the top 20 of the UK Single Charts. The single was also released across Europe that same year.

In popular culture

The song was popular with the emerging hip hop community, which appreciated the new electronic sounds, and in the Bronx, where it was later sampled by pioneering hip hop artist Afrika Bambaataa in his famous 1983 debut album Death Mix (1983). The "terse videogame-funk" sounds of "Computer Game" would have a strong influence on the emerging electro and hip hop music genres; the song's use of video game sounds and bleeps has been described as "ahead of their time" and as having a strong influence on 1980s hip hop and pop music. It was later included in electro hip hop artist Mantronix's compilation album That's My Beat (2002), which consists of electro music that influenced his early career.

The song was also an influence on early techno, specifically Detroit techno, for which it was included in Carl Craig's compilation album Kings of Techno (2006). The song also influenced Sheffield's bleep techno music; Warp's third record, "Testone" (1990) by Sweet Exorcist, defined Sheffield's techno sound, by making playful use of sampled sounds from "Computer Game" along with dialogues from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). "Testone" was in turn sampled in the UK hit "Tunes Splits The Atom" (1990) by 808 State and MC Tunes, as well as in "Naughty Naughty" (1994) by Jus a Test.

"Computer Game / Firecracker" was also sampled in a number of other songs, including Teddy Riley's hip hop single "Wong" (1986) by Al B. & Just Two MC's, 2 Live Crew's "Mega-Mixx II" (1987), De La Soul's "Funky Towel" (for the 1996 film Joe's Apartment), Jennifer Lopez's worldwide hit "I'm Real" (2001), and the original unreleased version of Mariah Carey's "Loverboy" (for the 2001 film soundtrack Glitter).

The anime series Cowboy Bebop has a character named Mad Pierrot, and Mad Pierrot's other alias is "Tongpu."