Yukihiro Takahashi (June 6, 1952 - January 11, 2023) was a Japanese singer-songwriter-producer who is best known internationally as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Prior to being part of the technopop trio, Takahashi made his music debut when he joined the prog-rock act Sadistic Mika Band as a drummer. The band changed lineups and became The Sadistics before Takahashi decided to focus on a solo career. While releasing his first solo album Saravah! in 1978, he was also established as a session player and frequent collaborator of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono, which lead them to form Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Out of the three members of YMO, Takahashi is the less remembered one (probably because of his tenure as a drummer) and yet he was just as active as his two bandmates, providing lead vocals on most of their songs as well as writing some of their biggest hits ("La Femme Chinoise", "Rydeen" and "Cue" just to name a few) while releasing solo albums at the same time. After YMO went on a hiatus in 1983, he kept his solo career consistant, releasing one album per year from the eighties to the nineties. He also founded side projets such as The Beatniks (with Keiichi Suzuki) and numerous foreign artists he collaborated with, notably Steve Jansen with whom he recorded an EP. Like his two YMO peers, he makes soundtracks for video games, films and anime (namely Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water). Outside of music, he was an occasional actor and appeared in some movies by Nobuhiko Obayashi.
In his later years, his projects included Sketch Show (a duo he formed with Haruomi Hosono), METAFIVE (along with various pre-established Japanese artists, including Towa Tei and Keigo Oyamada) and Pupa (Electronica band with a similar concept). He occasionally took part in revivals of Sadistic Mika Band and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Takahashi eventually passed away from pneumonia in 2023, a complication from a three-year battle with brain cancer, at the age of 70.
Discography
- 1978 - Saravah!
- 1980 - Murdered by the Music
- 1981 - Neuromantic
- 1982 - What Me Worry?
- 1983 - Tomorrow's Just Another Day
- 1984 - Wild & Woody
- 1985 - Poisson D'Avril note
- 1985 - Once A Fool
- 1986 - Only When I Laugh
- 1987 - La Pensée note
- 1988 - Ego
- 1989 - Broadcast From Heaven
- 1991 - A Day In The Next Life
- 1991 - The Adventure Of Gaku note
- 1992 - Lifetime, Happy Time
- 1992 - Umi • Sora • Sango No Litsutae note
- 1993 - Heart Of Hurt note
- 1994 - MR. YT
- 1995 - Fate Of Gold
- 1996 - Portrait With No Name
- 1997 - A Sigh Of Ghost
- 1998 - A Ray Of Hope
- 1999 - The Dearest Fool
- 2006 - Deep Moon Blue
- 2009 - Page By Page
- 2013 - Life Anew
- 2018 - Saravah Saravah! note
- 1984 - Time And Place
- 1991 - A Night In The Next Life
- 1998 - Run After You
- 2012 - Live 1988 Absolute Ego Dance
- 2013 - One Fine Night
- 2014 - Techno Recital
- 2015 - Heart of Hurt Live
- 2019 - LIVE 2018 SARAVAH SARAVAH
His work contains examples of:
- Book Ends: His first studio album was Saravah! in 1978. His final studio album before his death was Saravah Saravah!, a re-recording of Saravah! for its 40th anniversary in 2018.
- Christmas Songs: "X'mas Day In The Next Life" from A Day In The Next Life.
- Cover Version: Prominently featured on Saravah! which contains 3 covers, where Takahashi sings in Italian, French, and English.
- "Double, Double" Title: Saravah Saravah!
- Face on the Cover: Soundtrack albums aside, his face is shown on all of his studio albums.
- Genre Roulette: Starting off his solo career with the Western Pop influenced Saravah!, he quickly switched to technopop on the next albums and shifted to glitch-pop during the nineties.
- Gratuitous French: "Ripple" closes with French-language lyrics written by Pierre Barouh.
- In the Style of: Some of Takahashi's songs in the BGM era are direct homages to Ultravox. "Cue" and "Ballet" from that album and "Connection" from Neuromantic show this most clearly; in "Cue"'s case this was specifically acknowledged as being inspired by their song "Passionate Reply" (the B-side to "Vienna").
- Live Album: Some of his live albums feature the entirety of one of his albums.
- Oddball in the Series: While Technopop and Electronica are the main genres of his solo discography, there are some exceptions:
- Saravah! is a tribute to European pop music (this is proven by the covers of "Volare" and "C'est Si Bon") which also dabbles into bossa-nova and proto-city pop.
- Murdered by the Music features ska among technopop tracks.
- Heart Of Hurt is an acoustic album where he plays his earlier catalogue in a folk style.
- Rearrange the Song: He reinterpreted his previous songs in an acoustic folk style on Heart Of Hurt, while Saravah Saravah! is a complete rerecording of his debut album.
- "Drip Dry Eyes" from 1981's Neuromantic is a radical rearrangement of a song written by Takahashi and Chris Mosdell and performed by Sandii a year prior. While Sandii's version (produced by Haruomi Hosono) is sparse, synthetic, angular cod reggae, Takahashi's version is lush synth-drenched city pop.
- Record Producer: Of his own albums.
- The Remake: Saravah! was rerecorded in 2018 under the title Saravah Saravah!
- Solo Side Project: His first solo album came out when he was still a member of The Sadistics and he kept releasing more solo albums while being part of Yellow Magic Orchestra.
- Supergroup: Quite a lot, relatively!
- The Kakutougi Session was a one-off band featured on Ryuichi Sakamoto's Summer Nerves album (other members include Akiko Yano and Kenji Omura)
- The Beatniks is a duo he formed with Mother composer and Moonriders alum Keiichi Suzuki.
- Sketch Show is another duo which consisted of him and his YMO bandmate Haruomi Hosono (such duo was made on the basis that YMO should never reunite unless all three founding members are involved).
- METAFIVE is a band which incorporates various artists from Japan's Electropop scene (Yukihiro Takahashi, Keigo Oyamada, Towa Tei, Yoshinori Sunahara, Tomohiko Gondo and Leo Imai). It was originally a backing band for Takahashi before it evolved into its main act.
- Pupa is an electronica band involving various Japanese artists who are also singers. It features Takahashi along with Tomohiko Gondo, Ren Takada, Tomoyo Harada, Hiroshi Takano and Hirohisa Horie.
