[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Yellow Magic Orchestra: “Rydeen”
From the album Solid State Survivor (1979)
Yellow Magic Orchestra represents a Japanese take on the fully synthetic, drum-machine driven style of music that emerged in the 1970s and was represented by Kraftwerk, Cerrone, Giorgio Moroder, and early Human League, among others.
YMO has a strong dramatic sensibility that is missing in much other music of this genre, which can easily meld into a pleasantly repetitive sonic wallpaper. Their music also features a tunefulness uncommon to the loop-based productions of the period.
As “Rydeen” demonstrates, YMO forms one of the secret influences behind the “golden age” of video game music (c. 1980-1992), before the style became hackneyed and game companies started importing ready to hand pop songs.
Played 152 time(s).
August 05, 2009, 3:18pm
