(1952-2023) |
I first read about it from Naika Video's tweet earlier this morning. My reaction was "Oh, man, really?!". I knew that Ryuichi Sakamoto(坂本龍一)had been in pretty bad health after the announcement of his second bout with Stage 4 rectal cancer last June, and subsequent comments from him hinted that things were in the endgame. Still, my first Sunday in April 2023 has been given a sore dent on the news that The Professor finally succumbed to the disease last Tuesday on March 28th at the age of 71, and this was just a few months after his YMO bandmate Yukihiro Takahashi's(高橋幸宏)passing on January 11th.
Yellow Magic Orchestra was a band that I had known about since around 1979, the year following their official debut but I really didn't get my first impression of Sakamoto until I saw him in close-up on my "Best One '82 YMO Daizenshuu"(大全集)which I got as a present from my brother after he'd come back home from his Japan trip that year. Haruomi Hosono(細野晴臣)looked like a New Wave rocker, Takahashi looked dapper as always but Sakamoto in the right corner of that triangle appeared as a weird spectacle-wearing nerd. Perfect as an eccentric Professor! I can get along with Sakamoto, I proclaimed.
Of course, I would always associate Sakamoto with YMO and their brand of catchy and happy technopop but going into the 1980s, I also knew him as someone who had been once called "the world's most beautiful man" starring alongside another world's most beautiful man in the form of David Bowie in "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", whose theme song had been created by Sakamoto himself and has become a Xmas staple on store speakers.
Further going beyond those YMO days, Sakamoto would win an Oscar alongside Talking Heads' David Byrne and Chinese composer Cong Su for their joint work on the soundtrack for "The Last Emperor" in 1987. When I was back in Japan from the mid-1990s, I got to know Sakamoto again for his pop classical and healing music. And of course, all throughout that time, he was also contributing compositions and arrangements for other singers ranging from Taeko Ohnuki(大貫妙子)to Mari Iijima(飯島真理)to Miki Imai(今井美樹). I'm not sure if there had ever been anything called a Sakamoto sound but on hearing those creations, I could only say "Ah, naruhodo!". The best that I can offer is that he left a good amount of cool elegance in those.
Seeing photos of Sakamoto, knowing that his nickname was "kyouju"(教授...professor) and according to the wide variety of music he composed, I had assumed that for all of that genius talent on display, the one thing he lacked was a sense of humour. Luckily, I was wrong there. I will always remember that scene on comedy duo Downtown's Sunday night variety show where Sakamoto was beaten soundly for humour's sake, and yup, I saw that one live.
I leave you with a YouTube video uploaded by Raymond Larrett.
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