SOMEOFTHEM OF PODCAST Episode 29 'YMO' Special (Part 1) (2024)

A SOMEOFTHEM podcast by Akio Kanno and So OnoueWe are distributing the program "SOMEOFTHEM OF PODCAST." Here, we publish the transcript divided into the first and second parts. For episode 29, to deepen our musical education, we are publishing a "YMO" special (Part 1) where we dare to listen to YMO (?) straight.Podcast is available at the link below.

Kanno: This time it's straight. A YMO special.

Onoue: Oh! Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Kanno: Let's listen to Yellow Magic Orchestra songs.

Onoue: That's right down the middle. Are you really going to do that?

Kanno: They are a historical legacy in music history, and I felt that you really can't talk about music without going through these people.

Onoue: You've started saying things like "Record Collectors" (laughs).

Kanno: Let's look back at YMO now and think about modern music. Let's get smarter by listening to YMO!

Onoue: I'm surprised because it's so straight.

Kanno: Well then, let's listen to the first YMO song. E-girls with "RYDEEN ~Dance All Night~"

Onoue: Isn't this a YMO special?

Kanno: And that was a YMO song we just listened to.

Onoue: No, that's E-girls... (laughs)

Kanno: This is Yellow Magic!

Onoue: No, it's not... (laughs)

Kanno: They are the key figures who spread synthesizer-based music to the world, right? The very first song is "Mou Tomerarenai"

Onoue: Everything is wrong (laughs).

Kanno: Man, this song is amazing, isn't it?

Onoue: Is this supposed to be a cover?

Kanno: It's a cover, or rather,'Bouncing Beat and RYDEEN'right?

Kanno/Onoue: Hahahaha!

Onoue: I don't know if it's a cover, a mashup, or an inspiration, but this is really amazing.

Kanno: This is the part I like.'Past midnight taxi, showing my ID with one hand, bouncing beat and RYDEEN, inviting me to the party'It's like a spot-the-difference game in just that one verse, isn't it? (laughs)

Onoue: It's amazing how it rhymes throughout.'ID'and'RYDEEN'and'party'(laughs)

Kanno: Why would 'RYDEEN' be in these lyrics? (laughs)'RYDEEN'

Onoue: No, it's truly amazing.

Kanno:'Wetting my slightly tanned skin...'The melody part wasn't even in the original 'RYDEEN'.

Onoue: Something that 'wasn't there' just appeared! (laughs)

Kanno: That's a 'Naideen' (not there).

Onoue: I wanted to say that's a 'Naideen' too! (laughs)

Kanno: This is the kind of special we're doing today. (laughs)

Onoue: So, it's about covers and such related to YMO.

Kanno: E-girls is a bit of an older song, but let's listen to a song that's like a 2024 version of this.

Onoue: Hahahaha!

Kanno: And what's more, it's not even a YMO song anymore. We're going with a Ryuichi Sakamoto song.

Onoue: Then the concept is different, isn't it? (laughs)

Kanno: The concept is a bit different. The song is completely different (laughs). So, let's listen to it. IVE, David Guetta, 'Supernova Love'.

Kanno: It's a sampling of 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence'. Released on November 8, 2024.

Onoue: That's very recent.

Kanno: Regarding the latest release, it is currently in the middle of a massive controversy.

Onoue: Haha.

Kanno: Since they are dealing with 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,' they are putting romantic lyrics onto a song associated with the ravages of war. Let's look at the translated lyrics.'Oh baby, that's the kind of love I need, a supernova lighting up the darkness. I kept wishing upon a star, and then you came along. You occupied my heart, you filled my heart.'

Onoue: Those are the lyrics. Also, they tweaked the melodic phrases a bit, didn't they? They probably added notes to the original melody to fit the lyrics in.

Kanno: In terms of the backlash comments, there are many saying things like, 'Don't treat this song so frivolously!' or 'Apologize to Ryuichi Sakamoto!' I mean, you could see this coming, right?

Onoue: Like, 'You should know that the public would make a fuss about this.'

Kanno: The fact that it's a song by the recently deceased Ryuichi Sakamoto, or that it's a song wishing for peace with a melancholic melody—basically, none of that really matters to me. I'm the type who thinks that if the creator themselves believes that sampling or tweaking a song will make it better, they should go ahead and do it. But, I don't know. That desperate feeling of, 'Wait? I feel like going this way is a bad idea... wait a minute... huh? Hey, Supernova Love? Hey, hey! You shouldn't go that way, you've been making the wrong choice between the two options the whole time! No, that's not it! Ah!!'—strangely enough, that was actually interesting. In the sense that 'I have this kind of conservatism in me too.'

Onoue: I see.

Kanno: This is in a different sense from the general public's voice. It's like, even though Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and Ryuichi Sakamoto don't really have anything to do with me, I felt like they entered a territory I didn't want them to, or a kind of tainted feeling. But the creators are innocent. This state of complete misunderstanding. And the scale of it is just too huge.

Onoue: Also, this might be missing the point, but even so, if the song is good, it might be forgiven, or people might say, 'That's cool!' That's the power of a song, I guess. What's up with this song, or the E-girls one I mentioned earlier?

Kanno: For example, what were the E-girls trying to achieve by covering 'RYDEEN' like that? A cover is meant for people who don't know the original, or for those who do, right? Like, 'Would YMO fans forgive them for that cover?' (laughs)

Onoue: Also, I think the concept of YMO itself is to do techno with phrases that are old-fashioned or oriental, so if you extract the phrases themselves, they become oriental, right? 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence' is the same. If you just pull out those phrases and put them on that kind of modern arrangement, this is what happens (laughs). Plus, they sing in English. It's all a mismatch.

Kanno: That's right, they keep making the wrong choice between the two options.

Onoue: Well, I think it's a good thing that it's actually causing a controversy, though.

'SOMEOFTHEM OF PODCAST' is a music variety show where personality Akio Kanno and listener So Onoue try to discover new musical perspectives by playing quizzes and games with the latest J-POP and slightly nostalgic songs, and sometimes even making the songs battle each other (?). Please post your thoughts with the hashtag #SomeOf!ty