Chris Ryanczak's Blog

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Are You Ready for Some "京城音楽"?

Who or what is the Yellow Magic Orchestra?

Active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) is perhaps the most famous and influential rock group to originate from Japan.

Sorry, X Japan fans...

The Yellow Magic Orchestra were one of the first rock bands from Japan that attracted international interest, especially in the United States and in Britain.

When I was in high school in the mid to late 1980s in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the first time that I had ever heard of the Yellow Magic Orchestra was in a book about electronic music that I borrowed from my local public library. I had seen Tangerine Dream play at the Kiva Auditorium in Albuquerque during the summer of 1986 with a friend, so I started to get really interested in electronic music. Prior to discussing the gear required to make electronic music, the book profiled several artists that were making electronic music, such as Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis, Ultravox and John Foxx, Gary Numan, The Human League, Orchestral Manoevers in the Dark (OMD), Depeche Mode, and several other British electronic pop acts of the 1980s. Near the end, there was a brief profile about the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Electronic music from Japan seemed like an interesting and exotic idea. At the time, the only artists from Japan making electronic that I could specifically name were Isao Tomita and Kitaro.

At the time, I don't remember going to any of the record stores in Albuquerque specifically looking to buy any records that I could find by the Yellow Magic Orchestra. However, I did read about the band in the book The Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records by Ira A. Robbins. Like many people, I did see Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Last Emperor (1986), which featured YMO's Ryuichi Sakamoto co-writing the film's musical score as well play the role of the Japanese advisor to the King of Manchuria, Pu Yi, during World War II. The film's musical score won an Oscar at that year's Academy Awards. I also knew that Ryuichi Sakamoto had co-starred with David Bowie and Tom Conti in the forgotten World War II prisoner of war drama "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983).

It wasn't until I started listening to the albums Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) and Tin Drum (1981) by the British art rock group Japan that I REALLY started to get interested in exploring the discography of both Ryuichi Sakamoto solo and the Yellow Magic Orchestra. From there, I also discovered the several collaborations between Ryuichi Sakamoto and Japan's David Sylvian. Additionally, I had discovered the work of British guitarist Bill Nelson at around that time. I had a bought a copy of Bill Nelson's album Vistamix (known in the U.K. as Chimera), which featured YMO's Yukihiro Takahashi on drums for several songs.

On record, the members of the band were:

Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本龍一) on piano and synthesizers.
Haruomi Hosono (細野晴臣) on bass guitar and synthesizers.
Yukihiro Takahashi (高橋幸宏) on vocals and acoustic and electronic drums.

The band were something of a supergroup as each of the three members had already been involved in Japanese contemporary popular music for several years as composers, producers, members of other rock groups, studio musicians, and solo artists.

Prior to joining YMO, Yukihiro Takahashi had been the drummer for The Sadistic Mika Band, a Japanese rock group that once was the opening act for Roxy Music during the tour for the album Siren in 1975-76.
After graduating from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music with a degree in music composition, Ryuichi Sakamoto recorded and released a couple of records under his own name as well as working as a solo artist.
Haruomi Hosono was known as a successful producer, songwriter, studio musician, and solo artist in Japan.

After rapidly gaining enormous popularity in Japan, YMO became one of the few Japanese rock groups that began to attract the interest of audiences, musicians, and rock critics from abroad.During the late 1970s and early 1980s, YMO would go on to tour the United States, Britain, and West Germany, among other countries.In the United States, YMO even appeared on the classic TV show "Soul Train" as musical guests. On YouTube, there is even a concert video of the Yellow Magic Orchestra playing to a large audience at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. An image search on Google will return photos of the Yellow Magic Orchestra backstage after a concert with the likes of Japan (the band), Steve Strange and Rusty Egan of Visage, members of Ultravox (Midge Ure, Warren Cann, and Billy Currie), members of Throbbing Gristle, and Ralf Hutter and Wolfgang Flur of Kraftwerk. Those were some of the big names at the time that were using synthesizers as the main instrument.

The main instrument of choice used by YMO on their records was the synthesizer. Due to technological advancements by Japanese companies such as Yamaha, Roland, and Korg, among other companies, synthesizers became more affordable for musicians to purchase and use in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Synthesizers were no longer the exclusive domain of, say, Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman.

Thanks to Spotify and YouTube, I no longer have to search through the record bins at several of the record stores in Albuquerque that I used to visit, such as Bach-2-Rock, Bow Wow Records, Merlin's Record Workshop, Natural Sound, Hastings, or Sound Warehouse. After listening to YMO's discography on Spotify and YouTube, I find myself wondering why did it take so long to listen to these albums. I agree with the music critic who once said if a listener does not like Kraftwerk's cold, minimalist approach to electronic music, then the listener may find YMO's electronic music to be surprisingly warm and playful.

I would agree with that statement.

However, I still really like Kraftwerk's cold minimalism.

What is 京城音楽?

The song "京城音楽" ("Seoul Music") is from YMO's album "Technodelic", which was released on November 21, 1981.

First, let's analyze the Chinese characters that are the song's title. Just as an aside, Chinese characters used in the Japanese language are known as kanji. In the Korean language, Chinese characters are known as hanja. While the use of kanji is integral in the use of the Japanese language, the use of hanja in the Korean language has substantially declined. When I lived in Seoul, the only times I can remember seeing hanja being used was in newspapers and at museums and historical sites. There was a time in Korean history when written communication was written entirely in hanja. Why the change? As it was explained to me, there is a greater emphasis in South Korean schools on learning how to communicate using hangeul rather than using hanja. I remember reading somewhere that approximately 200 to 300 hanja characters are used daily in South Korea. In North Korea, the use of hanja appears to have been dropped from the Korean language altogether.

In the English language, "京城音楽" is translated as "Seoul Music".

In Japanese, the kanji characters 京城 are pronounced as Keijo.

The city of Seoul has a long and fascinating history. Since its founding, the city of Seoul has been known by various names. During the era of the Kingdom of Baekje in Three Kingdoms era of Korean history, the city was known as Wiryeseong (위례성, 慰禮城) and Hanseong. When the city became part of the Kingdom of Koguryo, it was known as Bukhansangun. During the Goryeo era, the city was known as Namgyeong (남경; 南京). Then, when the Mongols ruled Goryeo, the city became known as Hanyangbu. During the Joseon Dynasty era, the city was alternately referred to as Hanseong (한성; 漢城) and Hanyang (한양; 漢陽). However, during the Joseon Dynasty era, the general public started to refer to the city as Seoul (서울). In Traditional Chinese, the city of Seoul is known as 漢城, which is pronounced as Hànchéng. The Korean pronunciation of the hanja characters 漢城 is Hanseong. In Simplified Chinese, the city of Seoul is known as 汉城, which is pronounced as Hànchéng. The Korean pronunciation of the Chinese characters 汉城 is Seoul.When Imperial Japan annexed the Kingdom of Korea in 1910, the city of Seoul became known as Keijo (京城). In Chinese, the kanji characters 京城 are pronounced as Jincheng, which translates as "capital city". In the Korean language, the hanja characters 京城 are pronounced as Gyeongseong. In 1946, the city reverted back to using the name Seoul (서울). In Japanese katakna, the city of Seoul is known simply as ソウル.

Lastly, the kanji characters for the word "music" are 音楽, which is pronounced as "ongaku" in Japanese. In Korean, the same characters 音楽 are pronounced as "eum-ag", which also translates to the word "music".

The song's lyrics, written by Peter Barakan, paint a picture of what visiting Seoul would have been like in the early 1980s.

In a nutshell, the 1980s were a decade of enormous political tumult and social upheaval in South Korea following the assassination of President Park Chung Hee in 1979 by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) at an official dinner. In the wake of President Park Chung Hee's assination, Army Generals Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo governed South Korea as a military dictatorship for most of the decade. Living in far away Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the time, I remember seeing news reports from South Korea on CNN that always seemed to contain footage of democracy protestors, riot police, water cannons, and ample amounts of CS gas. One of the major scandals of the time was the execution of 100 democracy protestors by the South Korean Army in the southwestern city of Gwangju. As if all of that wasn't enough, the threat of an invasion of South Korea by North Korea was an ever present threat. Then, somehow, Seoul hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics.

With all of that cultural background, here are Peter Barakan's lyrics to "京城音楽" ("Seoul Music") by the Yellow Magic Orchestra:

Dongdaemun.

Kimpo Airport.

An old man with a stick, in white baji chogori

With a black katsu on his head.

The taxi driver kept asking if I wanted a woman.

ハイウェイは滑走路. (The highway is the runway.)

Myongdong St. has no neon signs.

Roadside pillboxes with armed police in front.

国の花はムクゲ. (The national flower is the mukuge.)