Flashback Friday: Yellow Magic Orchestra - Rydeen | Past<Future flowers

On January 11, 2023, Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra had passed away. So we’re gonna flashback to one of my favourite Yellow Magic Orchestra songs, which Yukihiro Takahashi happens to be credited as doing the music for.

Yellow Magic Orchestra have a bunch of great songs that I adore. But “Rydeen” from their second studio album Solid State Survivor is one of my favourites. It also has a really cool album cover. (Y’all know I’m a sucker for a good album cover). “Rydeen” also has a music video which feels very ‘of the time’, in an age of retro reverence, ‘everything that’s old is new’ and music video budgets being slashed to leave us with raggedy green screen messes, which Marvel Studios are carrying into their films. But that’s a whole other post for a different blog.

Yellow Magic Orchestra’s discography is timeless. Not just because the music was good, but because the group were so forward thinking when it came to their music and how they approached it - embracing the use of synthesizers and the advent of digital recordings and technology in music production. Yellow Magic Orchestra were even effectively doing chiptune music, before it was a genre, elements of which you can hear in “Rydeen”. But the trio never lost the importance nor the craft of playing instruments, and folding it into their sound to create this cool balance of digital and analog. Old, new, present and future. And Yellow Magic Orchestra’s approach to music is one which carries through not just Japanese music, but music. Period.

Yellow Magic Orchestra’s influence has had a far greater impact on music than I think has ever been acknowledged. You could pick any Japanese producer in the dance or electropop space, and trace their sound back to Yellow Magic Orchestra. And even beyond the sound, Yellow Magic Orchestra were a huge influence. For example. The Teriyaki Boyz’s second studio album Serious Japanese is a recreation of sorts of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s X∞Multiplies.

A big thing in Japanese music has always been taking popular sounds and genres from the US and then adopting it. Okay. Ripping it off. But Yellow Magic Orchestra were always ahead of the curve. They never just did was others in the US and across Europe did. They’d always reinterpret it. Push it forward. Transform it into something that felt different and new. Put uniquely Japanese twists on them, but in a satirical manner - something we sometimes hear in Nakata productions, particularly his work with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

Yellow Magic Orchestra played a massive part in establishing the electropop sound in Japan, a torch which continues to be carried to this day by acts in Japan. And it’s become so ubiquitous, that Japanese synth-pop / elctropop has branched off and become its own thing in my eyes. A torch carried by the likes of Nakata Yasutaka. One of the reasons why I like Perfume’s albums Plasma, LEVEL3 and Triangle, and Nakata Yasutaka’s core sound is because it reminds me so much of Yellow Magic Orchestra. It’s not hard to imagine Perfume doing a song like “Rydeen” or Yellow Magic Orchestra having done a song like “1mm” or “Night Flight”. (For the record, they absolutely have).

Yellow Magic Orchestra also managed to make a surprisingly huge impact on pop music worldwide. “Firecracker” was the song that broke through, a song which they famously performed on Soul Train. The synth pop boom of the 80s in the UK was in part because of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Afrika Bambaataa would use the song as part of his “Death Mix” which included “Firecracker”. And years later, Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real” would sample “Firecracker”, following it being yoinked from Mariah Carey’s original version of “Loverboy”. But despite Yellow Magic Orchestra’s wide impact, it’s not something which is widely acknowledged. Your avergae music listener probabaly doesn't even know that Jennifer Lopez’s “I’m Real” features a sample, let alone that it’s from a song by Yellow Magic Orchestra. And I bet if a song was to come out tomorrow which samples or interpolates “Firecracker”, because would say ‘Oh, it’s that Jennifer Lopez song’.

Prison, honey.

But, back to “Rydeen”, and why I like it as much as I do. I like music from the 80s. And growing up I was a huge gamer and become obsessed with video game music. But I was also a bit of a daydreamer. So “Rydeen” intersects all of these things. It’s 80s. It sounds NES-like and video gamey. It takes you on this wild trip. And I think this is a huge part as to why Yellow Magic Orchestra’s music struck such a chord with so many people. It managed to be this fusion of multiple things which resonated with different people, differently, in a way that I don’t think people though that electronic music could. Electronic music had a reputation for being a little lifeless. But Yellow Magic Orchestra and songs like “Rydeen” shifted that, because the music had so much heart and feeling. This is what only a teeny part of what makes Yukihiro Takahashi’s passing so tragic, but also teaches a valuable lesson; which is that if you follow your heart and put it into what you do, it will always find an audience who appreciates it. Even if everybody doesn’t get it. Even if it doesn’t get the widespread recognition it deserves. And I think the whole world deserves to give Yellow Magic Orchestra their fucking flowers, I’m also just grateful that I myself know of how amazing this group and their music is, and that “Rydeen” existed to make me feel seen at a time when I felt so invisible and misunderstood.

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