Ryuichi Sakamoto
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"One of the earliest uses of the Roland TR-808 for a live performance was by Yellow Magic Orchestra in December 1980 in the song "Thousand Knives," composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1978. The hand-clap sound was later publicized by YMO's innovative album BGM, released March 1981 in Japan, used again on "Thousand Knives," as well as in another of Sakamoto's songs, "Music Plans."" --Sholem Stein |
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Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952 – 2023) was a Japanese composer, record producer, and actor who pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres.
Sakamoto began his career while at university in the 1970s as a session musician, producer, and arranger. His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of YMO. He concurrently pursued a solo career, releasing the experimental electronic fusion album Thousand Knives in 1978. Two years later, he released the album B-2 Unit. It included the track "Riot in Lagos", which was significant in the development of electro and hip hop music. He went on to produce more solo records, and collaborate with many international artists, David Sylvian, Carsten Nicolai, Youssou N'Dour, and Fennesz among them. Sakamoto composed music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and his composition "Energy Flow" (1999) was the first instrumental number-one single in Japan's Oricon charts history.
As a film-score composer, Sakamoto wrote Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983); its main theme was adapted into the single "Forbidden Colours". His most successful work as a film composer was The Last Emperor (1987), after which he continued earning accolades composing for films such as The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993), and The Revenant (2015). On occasion, Sakamoto also worked as a composer and a scenario writer on anime and video games. In 2009, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture of France for his contributions to music.
Discography
Solo studio albums
- Thousand Knives (1978)
- B-2 Unit (1980)
- Left-Handed Dream (1981)
- Ongaku Zukan (1984)
- Esperanto (1985)
- Futurista (1986)
- Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia (1986)
- Neo Geo (1987)
- Beauty (1989)
- Heartbeat (1991)
- Sweet Revenge (1994)
- Smoochy (1995)
- 1996 (1996)
- Discord (1997)
- BTTB (1999)
- Comica (2002)
- Elephantism (2002)
- Chasm (2004)
- Out of Noise (2009)
- Playing the Piano (2009)
- Three (2013)
- Async (2017)
- 12 (2023)
