"Express Jun and Xi Rui Talk about Japan No. 20210123075"
Take you through the story of this world-class master and cheer for the teacher [Part II]
In the last issue, we talked about Ryuichi Sakamoto, who formed a band called ymo with Haruo Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. The band later had a huge impact on the American music scene.
Some people may ask, are they not Japanese, why did they have an impact on the American music scene? This has to start with when they set up ymo.
When Haruhito Hosono first proposed it, Ryuichi Sakamoto was actually more worried. Because he had never formed a band, he was afraid that the band activities would take too much time and bring a lot of pressure to himself. But Hosono Haruto said: "It's okay, just play." So all three of them held such a playful mentality and let YMO officially set up.
The full name of ymo is "yellow magicorchestra", which translates to Chinese is "yellow magic symphony orchestra". The name derives from the "yellow magic" concept led by Haruto Hosono. What is the "yellow magic" concept? "White magic" is white magic, "black magic" is black magic, and "yellow magic" is music composed by three yellow-skinned Japanese people, music with magical powers.
At that time, Tokyo's various fields in the world can be said to be relatively advanced, full of a sense of the future. In this era, ymo chooses to create music that is electronic music. Because Hosono Haruto is very good at pop, jazz and electronic music, and Ryuichi Sakamoto learned to use electronic devices in college, this just came in handy. Among the three, Yukihiro Takahashi is very good at singing, far more than the other two, so he is responsible for the lead singer.
In November 1978, shortly after its formation, YMO released its first album, which had the same title as the band," Yellow Magic Orchestra. They pioneered a whole new style: the use of computers and synthesizers for electronic music creation. And they also used electronic music as a carrier to add a lot of elements, such as Japanese folk music, jazz, rock and so on, which was very avant-garde at the time. The music covered on the album is very extensive, and it also allows the listener to enter a vast world of music.
After the release of the album, it sold very well in Japan, selling 250,000 copies, ranking 69th on the o chart at that time. YMO has also received a lot of attention in Japanese music fan circles, and has been called "a new wind of the times". However, what they did not expect was that this album caused an even stronger sensation in the United States.
When people at A&M Records saw their performances, they decided what would happen when YMO's albums were released internationally. Immediately after, YMO's second album, Solid State Survivor, was also well received and gained huge popularity in both Japan and the United States. The song with the same name as the album, "Solid State Survivor", won the first place in the Japanese o chart that year.
Another song, "Behind the Mask", was later covered by Michael Jackson! Under the influence of Michael Jackson, this piece became the most familiar piece of music in Europe and the United States.
YMO has always been avant-garde in music pop, and they are pioneers of "techno-pop" electronic pop. In 1979, YMO performed abroad for the first time, warming up another band at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, USA, but it was warmly welcomed by the audience. The entire audience stood up and demanded that the band return. This situation is very rare in any era. With its mysterious oriental elements, its ability to improvise at any time, and a new style, ymo captured European and American audiences.
In October of the same year, another tour of YMO began in London. The Japanese media also paid a lot of attention to the tour, and various TV stations reported it one after another. Ymo's style of not deliberately pleasing the audience, focusing on the performance, and an alternative red people's costume, made the Japanese pay more and more attention to the band. After they returned to Japan, Japan set off a ymo boom.
YMO is so unique, first popular in the United States, and then accepted by Japan. On the streets of Tokyo in the 1980s, you can hear the high-tech electronic music of the ymo band everywhere.
In the history of music, there have been two bands that popularized electronic music, one is the German kraftwerk, that is, the power station band, and the other is ymo. YMO has played an irreplaceable role in promoting and inspiring electronic music in Japan, the United States, and even the world.
Ryu Sakamoto, on the other hand, explored the forefront of electronic music in ymo and perfectly used his musical talents. He thought that before joining YMO, he was only half a bucket of water, but after joining it, he slowly grew up after a lot of tempering.
Of course, we can think that this is Ryuichi Sakamoto's self-effacing statement, because in fact all three of the ymo people are very talented. But it was also because the three of them were very talented that it led to the dissolution of the final YMO.
Originally, the three of them just playfully composed music, because they received a huge welcome, and after the fame and fortune, there was naturally a huge pressure to treat the concert more seriously. Therefore, three people with great talents will inevitably have indirect conflicts in music. They all have their own unique understanding of music, want to express their musical ideas, and they all stubbornly insist on their own ideas. After a collision of ideas, they found that the contradictions between them could not be reconciled at all. So in the end, YMO can only step by step towards the already doomed ending.
In 1983, YMO disbanded after releasing its sixth album, Naughtyboys. They chose to quit at the peak of ymo's glory, burning out the last fireworks.
Ryuichi Sakamoto, who returned to a man, did not stop his activities. Instead, he was commissioned with various tasks. Among them, there is an invitation from the famous Japanese director Nagisa Oshima. He invited Ryuichi Sakamoto to star in the movie Merry Christmas on the Battlefield, hoping that Ryuichi Sakamoto would play the Role of Japanese Officer Senoi.
Ryuichi Sakamoto is actually a fan of Nagisa Oshima, admires Nagisa Oshima very much, and has seen many movies of Nagisa Oshima, so Ryuichi Sakamoto is very happy about this invitation. However, he still retained his reticence as an artist, so he said to Nagisa Oshima: If you can make me the soundtrack of the film, I will star, and Nagisa Oshima agreed.
Here's a little episode, when the Japanese actor who starred in "Merry Christmas on the Battlefield" and Takeshi Kitano. As we said before about takeshi Kitano, due to the rise of television media in the 1980s, Kitano's group has developed in many ways, and acting in movies is also one of the jobs. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano are well known in their respective fields and have many achievements. The two have intersected before, and Ymo once participated in the TV show "The Manzai" led by Takeshi Kitano. The cross-talk they starred in can be said to be extremely precious in the whole of Japan. This is the first time the two have collaborated on a movie.
Coincidentally, neither Ryuichi Sakamoto nor Takeshi Kitano has acting experience, and both are first-time filmmakers. And director Nagisa Oshima is also a notoriously violent temper, and the crew and actors will angrily shout loudly if they are slightly unsatisfactory. So Ryuichi Sakamoto found the director Nagisa Oshima and made a three-chapter agreement with him, and if the director scolded them, they would leave. Nagisa Oshima also understood, after all, these two are not professional actors, so they try not to scold them.
In Ryuichi Sakamoto's recollection, he said that he didn't know that actors were going to memorize lines, thinking that someone would hold up a line board to prompt. So at first I heard the director's voice "start shooting" and was overwhelmed. Then the angry director pointed at Ryuichi Sakamoto, and when he was about to scold, his fingers turned to the other professional actors, and he yelled: How did you do it! How do you let Jun Sakamoto act like this! Even Takeshi Kitano later became Ryuichi Sakamoto's "scapegoat", which is very interesting. Later, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano became good friends, and when he participated in Takeshi Kitano's variety show, Takeshi Kitano kept complaining about this matter.
In the film, director Nagisa Oshima has gradually increased his requirements for Ryuichi Sakamoto. But musically, he did not interfere in the creation of Ryuichi Sakamoto, giving Ryuichi Sakamoto plenty of time and complete freedom in the composition of the soundtrack. And the music that came out after that must be known to everyone and heard, is "merry christmas, mr. lawrence" ("Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence").
The influence of this song even exceeds the film itself, and it is still appreciated and played by countless people today. Whenever Ryuichi Sakamoto went to a place to play, everyone would ask him to play this piece. Hearing this tune, somehow, there is a very heartache feeling. But the heartache is heartache, and everyone just likes this song. It was also because of this song that Ryu Sakamoto began the road of cooperation with famous international directors.
In 1986, the film "The Last Emperor" by italian director Bertolucci began filming in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Around that time, the film's producer, Jeremy Thomas, called Ryuichi Sakamoto and invited him to play masahiko Kazuhiko, a Japanese officer in it, and he would go next week. Although it was very sudden, Sakamoto Ryuichi agreed to star and came to Beijing.
After the shooting in Beijing was completed, he went to Changchun to shoot. After filming in Changchun, Ryuichi Sakamoto was told that there would be a scene of the enthronement ceremony in these two days, hoping that he could do the soundtrack. Originally, he only came as an actor, but at this point, he also agreed.
At that time, changchun studios only had a piano with a different tone, but it could still be played. Ryuichi Sakamoto leaned on this piano and composed music with local musicians. The result was smooth, and the song was handed over perfectly.
Half a year after the end of "The Last Emperor," Ryuichi Sakamoto, who works in New York, suddenly received a call from producer Jeremy, who asked Ryuichi Sakamoto to help make the soundtrack and only gave him a week. Ryuichi Sakamoto, who lives in a hotel in the United States, writes the score without any musical instruments, relying on the rhythm of the calculator.
Since he hadn't studied Chinese music before, he bought more than twenty anthology of Chinese music and listened to them all in one day. Two weeks later, he handed over 44 tunes and was hospitalized for overwork. Ryuichi Sakamoto later recalled that he was young at that time and could withstand such a job.
There is a classic scene in "The Last Emperor", where the imperial concubine Wenxiu shouts "I can't stand it anymore", and then leaves Puyi's house in the rain, throws down the umbrella and runs away. Ryuichi Sakamoto's song for this scene is "rain". When the Italian staff heard this, they almost danced happily, hugged each other and said, "It's so beautiful."
Later, "The Last Emperor" won nine Oscars, including the best original music award. Ryuichi Sakamoto and two other composers, David Byrne of the United Kingdom, and Su Cong of China, came to the scene to receive the award.
Not only as a ymo, but also as an individual Ryuichi Sakamoto, his talent in music has also been recognized and recognized by the world. But when asked why he accepted a job with such a short schedule, he confessed that he was easily attracted to film creators. Later, he also composed music for the film "High Heels" by the famous Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar and the film "Wild Palms" by the famous American director Oliver Stone. And the soundtrack of the movie "Little Living Buddha" starring Keanu Reeves is also from his hand. Even in 2014, when he suffered from throat cancer and needed to recuperate, he accepted the invitation of Mexican director Alessandro to score the film "The Revenant".
For film music, Ryuichi Sakamoto once commented that film music is actually to implement their ideas according to the requirements of others, so there will be many restrictions on creation. But this restriction can bring beneficial stimuli to creation. By trying something you haven't done before, you may uncover new possibilities. While scoring the film, he is also enjoying the joy that music brings to himself. This happiness also slowly became not limited to the soundtrack, but penetrated into the life of Ryuichi Sakamoto.
In 1989, Ryuichi Sakamoto's career shifted overseas, and the following year he moved to New York, where he worked in his New York music studio until now.
He was extremely sensitive to sound, and he thought that everything could be music. In the documentary about Ryuichi Sakamoto, he combines different instruments every day, such as holding a violin bow and pulling a cymbal for a drum to hear what kind of sounds they make.
When it rains, he will put his head in a bucket and feel the sound of rain; he will go to the forest and feel the footsteps on dead leaves; he will go to Africa and feel the sound of lakes; he will go to the Arctic Circle and put the sound collector into the river under the ice in a way similar to fishing, collecting the clear sound of the river.
Ordinary people don't think of these sounds as music, but Ryuichi Sakamoto finds them very interesting, and he wants to integrate these sounds into his music, so that the instruments and ambient sounds can be integrated, creating music that has not been formalized. Finally, these are all presented on his new disc Async.
If you say, the sensitivity to music makes him choose to use music to express the harmony and beauty of nature. Then the concept of politics also allowed him to express his concern and appeal to humanities with music.
I don't know if you remember the last issue we mentioned that Ryuichi Sakamoto in high school was influenced by leftist ideas and participated in student activities. But Ryuichi Sakamoto, who moved to New York, was 38 years old, and was no longer a young and crazy junior who only wanted attention, but a musician who really cared about the world.
In 1997, Ryuichi Sakamoto saw the news that the Refugees in the Rwandan Civil War were being reported on television, and he was in a bad mood for a long time, so he wrote the song "Discord". Discord stands for "discord" and "dispute" and was written by Ryuichi Sakamoto to document the event. From then on, Ryu Sakamoto began to use music to intervene in real-world problems.
In 1999, he wrote the opera Life, which was full of information about environmental and social issues. He also projected Oppenheimer's reflections on the atomic bomb, the father of the atomic bomb, onto the screen. What he wants to express, what he hopes, is that humanity can stop war, stop man-made disasters, and live in peace.
In 2004, he released his album Chasm, which expressed strong dissatisfaction with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He said he really couldn't look at it and felt sad about it every day.
The 2011 Earthquake in Japan and the Fukushima nuclear accident also had an impact on Ryuichi Sakamoto. He didn't just think, what can I do for this disaster? Later, he recruited children from the affected areas, formed a youth orchestra, personally taught them music knowledge, and brought the children into the world of music.
The following year, Ryuichi Sakamoto came to Fukushima, Japan, and held a charity performance in a small town called Rikuzen Takata. On the stage, he first said a greeting: Everyone must be very cold. It doesn't matter if it's cold, you can get up and move. Then he said please relax and listen to me. Finally, when he sat down and put his hand on the key of the piano, the note of "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" jumped out of his fingers, instantly touching the audience.
In this place of Rikuzen-Takada, many people lost their lives in the tsunami caused by the earthquake. Even though more than a year has passed, it still surrounds the local people like a nightmare. And Ryuichi Sakamoto's performance seems to tell them that they can finally really fall asleep.
For decades, Ryuichi Sakamoto has impressed countless people around the world with his music. People remember his beautiful songs, his handsome face and gentle personality, but little is known about his story. The reason why we tell the story of these two issues is to let everyone know more about this music giant. Musically, he inherits the classics and leads the trend; in terms of personality, he is gentle and elegant, but also bold and impulsive; he evaluates himself as a contradiction, but it is such a perfect contradiction that has become a cultural symbol that Cannot be replaced by Japan and even the world, and has become an idol in everyone's heart.
In 2014, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. During the recuperation at home, you can hear the moving piano sound coming from Ryuichi Sakamoto's room every day. Because he felt that he did not know how many years he could live in the future, in order not to leave regrets, he wanted to create more works that he could get his hands on. Fortunately, after all these years of treatment, throat cancer has been alleviated and he has returned to a normal life. People's hanging hearts have also let go a little.
So the other day, when we heard that Ryuichi Sakamoto had been diagnosed with rectal cancer, the hanging heart was lifted again. However, we believe that Ryuichi Sakamoto will be able to overcome the disease again and create more and better works!