Japanese Pop’s Secret Utopians
Bright, ironic, and tuneful, Yellow Magic Orchestra provided the soundtrack to Japan’s bubble economy in the 1980s. But the band’s work also contained hidden depths and the memories of East Asia’s political struggles.
2 Articles by: Dan Barrow
Dan Barrow is a writer and researcher based in Birmingham. He has written for the Wire, Sight and Sound, LA Review of Books, and others.
A Thousand Flowers for Ryuichi Sakamoto
After a spell in a Marxist youth movement, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s constantly inventive music came to soundtrack the consumerist mania of the 1980s Japanese boom. But in his most recent work, the late composer turned back to experimentation and activism.