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BGM (Music)

 BGM (Music)
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 BGM (Music)
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 BGM (Music)
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 BGM, released in 1981, is the fourth album by Japanese Synth-Pop supergroup Yellow Magic Orchestra. Recorded in only two months (at the request of bandleader Haruomi Hosono), the album steps away from the comedy approach of ×∞Multiplies in favor of furthering the more mechanical direction of Solid State Survivor. Taking influence from Ryuichi Sakamoto's solo album B-2 Unit, the album incorporates elements of both Krautrock and the emerging genre of electro music (which the B-2 Unit track "Riot in Lagos" had previously been the Trope Maker for). Fitting this, the album is the first to make use of the Roland TR-808, one of the first programmable drum machines in the world; YMO had already been the first band to make use of the device, featuring it on their 1980 tour for a rendition of Sakamoto's 1978 solo piece "Thousand Knives". In addition, the album marks the band's shift from prior English lyricist Chris Mosdell to Peter Barakan, a British DJ residing in Japan who had previously worked with Sakamoto on B-2 Unit; Barakan would become the band's go-to lyricist both for YMO work and their solo material.The album's recording sessions were marked by escalating Creative Differences between Sakamoto and Hosono, owed to their competitive working relationship and their increasingly divergent tastes in music clashing with one another. This came to a head during the making of "Cue", an homage to British New Romantic group Ultravox. Sakamoto, who disliked Ultravox, attempted to sabotage the song by going AWOL during recording, sitting out on most of the album's production as a result and turning in no new tracks apart from "Music Plans", an allegory for his frustrated mental state at the time (the other two Sakamoto-composed pieces were rearranged solo cuts). Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi shot back by simply putting together the album without Sakamoto. These creative clashes would eventually lead to a hiatus after their next album, Technodelic, before culminating in the band's breakup after the supporting tour for Service in 1984.Like YMO's previous albums, BGM was another commercial success for the band, reaching No. 2 on the Oricon LP Chart. In the US, however, it didn't chart at all; ×∞Multiplies had already just barely made the Billboard 200, and the underperformance of both albums would lead to YMO's US label, A&M Records, dropping them and refusing to reissue their music. The band's backlog would only come back to American shores with Restless Records' international CD releases of the band's first remastering campaign in 1992; these too would undersell, leading to YMO never releasing their music Stateside again. Later reissues would be limited to Europe and Canada, where they held more sizable cult followings.BGM was supported by two singles: "Cue" and "Mass".Not to be confused with Background Music.TracklistFace ⌊• "Ballet" (4:34) "Music Plans" (4:34) "Rap Phenomena" (4:33) "Happy End" (4:33) "1000 Knives"note originally by Ryuichi Sakamoto (5:24)Face ⌊•• "Cue" (4:33) "U•T" (4:34) "Camouflage" (4:34) "Mass" (4:32) "Loom" (5:21)Do you think you can trope?:
 BGM (Music)
fetched
 2023-05-17T02:14:38Z
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 2023-05-17T02:14:38Z
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 BGM (Music)
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 Rarely Performed Song / int_e219e6d
 BGM (Music)
hasFeature
 The Not-Remix / int_e219e6d