FORBIDDEN COLOURS: ALL EXCEPT BLUE
Innovative Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto has died aged 71. From a young age, he devoured all kinds of media from conventional to experimental, and cited Debussy and John Cage as key influences. In the late 70s, he co-founded Yellow Magic Orchestra with Yukihiro Takahashi (died January 2023) and Haruomi Hosono (sweating nervously). The outfit’s early ventures into electronic and synthpop, heard through songs like “Computer Game”, “Firecracker”, and “Rydeen”, shaped everything from hip-hop to video game music.
Sakamoto pursued solo ventures to the side, with debut solo album Thousand Knifes crisscrossing from electronic to reggae to classical in a display that his ever-curious spirit wouldn’t be confined to one genre. YMO dissolved largely so Sakamoto could fully focus on standalone work. He ventured into acting, agreeing to play a WWII POW camp commander opposite David Bowie in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence on the condition he compose it. His icy, evocative title theme later became a hit single for him and David Sylvain under “Forbidden Colours”. He won an Oscar for composing The Last Emperor, and would gain further acclaim for subsequent Bernardo Bertolucci films The Sheltering Sky and Little Buddha.
He occasionally ventured into anime and video games (he composed the Dreamcast startup jingle), topped the Japanese charts in 1999 with soothing instrumental “Energy Flow” (initially used for an energy drink ad), and collaborated with figures like Iggy Pop and Brian Wilson on subsequent albums. Post-Fukushima, he became active in environmental activism with an antinuclear bent, and was sending letters in opposition to a planned development project days before his death.
Sakamoto brushed off a bout with throat cancer in 2014, but a colon cancer diagnosis in 2021 couldn’t be shaken, and a farewell concert released in late 2022 was timed just right for DDP pickers. Among the 63 teams who gain: Just about all the usual suspects had him, though Banana’s Peel Slippers was a key exception and this allows To Kill A Gabor Sister to claw back the lead while we’re still in early days. Four joker picks include The Policies Of Benjamin Netanyahu and Waiting for the Hearse, while 12 Lords A-Leaving, 8 Ladies Dying and You Might Be A King or a Little Street Sweeper are among those off the mark.
Ryuichi Sakamoto
17 January 1952 – 28 March 2023, aged 71
63 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 40 = 10 POINTS, 🃏 (x4) 20 POINTS)