YMO - Solid state survivor

It's 2010, let's kick this off with a past look at the future! Who are these dudes and what is this shit? Well, they rose to prominence in the late 1970s as Japan's premiere synth group. They're pretty well regarded world wide, and with good reason. They're all top notch musicians and songwriters. They launched a style of music in their country almost singlehandedly. They mapped out a new way to write pop music that was weird. And unlike the pop music from Japan pretty much since, they sound unmistakably ethnic without being obtuse. This is the band that launched Ryuichi Sakamoto's career, and he's gone all over the place with his movie scores, avant-strange compositions, and general enthusiasm for the new. So what's this sound like, then? Awesome is what it sounds like. It opens with "Technopolis" and its thumping disco bassline, then the many synthesizers come in playing what you don't expect them to without ever playing anything out of place, though it goes from vocoders to weebly squiggles to ringy fancypants twiddles to triumphant horn sounds. Just YOU try to make that shit coherent. These guys do. Also, Yukihiro Takahashi. You'd swear the drums were programmed, but he just plays tighter than a nun's cunt, and does most of the singing while he's at it. The next track isn't that hot, but "Rydeen", one of the band's signatures, is a completely awesome, hard-driving piece of cheese. "Castalia", the next track, is slower and atmospheric, a deconstructed composition of the same kind you hear a lot in Sakamoto's solo career. "Behind the mask" somehow sounds like a robot rollerskating through a park on a sunny day with its choppy rhythms and laid back feel. They cover the Beatles' "Day tripper", then get cinematic again before they close it out with the title track, which probably gave Mark Mothersbaugh a boner. These guys are hugely influential, and even if early synth driven pop music isn't your thing, it's an interesting glimpse at the evolution of music, drawing from any sources that sound good. They STILL pack the house when they get together and play, which is only right. This is what the future will sound like when we finally get those fucking flying cars and silvery jumpsuits.