Yellow Magic Orchestra: Firecracker [1978]
YMO's first single in Japan (1978) was released in the US a year later.
These are the instruments claimed to be on the album:
Moog III-C modular synthesizer
Korg PS1300 Polyphonic synth
Polymoog
ARP Odyssey monosynth
Oberheim Eight Voice polysynth w. Digital programmer
Fender Rhodes electric piano
Steinway grand piano
Minimoog
Korg VC-10 Vocoder
Marimba
Yamaha Drums
Syn-Drums
Fender Bass guitar (unknown if it's either the Precision or Jazz bass)
Roland MC-8 Microcomposer sequencer
How many can you hear on this track?
Also, my mind might be fried from studying for the PSAT, but this is my new favorite music video:
The neon bird throughout (5:37) reminds me a bit of the bird in Thom Yorke's amazing, depressing video from last year.
Buy YMO.
10 comments:
Erm... you've mislabeled this song, it's "Computer Game" not "Firecracker" (which only goes for two seconds anyway). Good choice though, i love this song.
Oops... ignore that two seconds crap about "Firecracker", if you do have that song i wouldn't mind if you posted it.
Ace! It sounds like the Tokugawa Shogunate went on vacation and the Meiji Restoration threw a party in their mansion!
Have I mislabeled it?
I am not sure I have. Computer game is the song at the beginning (first two) minutes of the video. I'll double-check when I get home later though.
Faces and names only cause trouble for me.
Nah Mike, you're right.
Computer Game is the glitchy intro to this song up to where the drum beat kicks in. After that it seques into a cover of cheesy meister Martin Denny's Orientalist jingle Firecracker. First record by YMO is a real grower. Check out Solid State Survivor though that's got some great tunes.
It took me a little while to get into this album, and not nearly as long to get into Technodelic. I have Solid State Survivor as well, and listen to that, on ocassion. Definitely in two or three months if this blog is still around I will post something from SSS.
When I see a person do a google search for "this must be the ugliest piece of bread" and end up at artdecade, those kinds of things make this worth while. Luckily those kinds of things happen almost every day.
So yeah, thanks for the analsis of Computer Game > Firecracker. We appreciate it, and I mean that!
Good Stuff.
A friend of mine once gave me a CD by a japanese YMO cover band, ERO MAGIC ORCHESTRA. Equally fantastic.
("Ero" is japanese for "yellow".)
http://www.recohan.net/record-hunter-hints/en/rhh-010.shtml
I was working for an old fashioned music store (instruments, sheet music, records, stereos, etc etc) when this was released, still have a promo LP. Also have the CD. My favorite track is "Simoon." jack
This version sounds great. I think it might be somehow remixed from the original (the first two albums have been remixed and remastered many times). In Japan, their most famous song was "Rydeen". Rydeen was supposed to be the theme song for the sports teams for the 1980 Summer Olympics, but Japan ended up following the US and boycotting.
Great piece of information on Rydeen. I definitely did not know that... Japan was definitely ahead of its time on widespread acceptance of this kind of music. Thank you!
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