Search - Yellow Magic Orchestra :: Naughty Boys

Their Poppiest and Oddly Their Best

Alf Kremer | Denver CO | 10/19/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Although YMO is best known (by some, anyway) as pioneers in electronic music, here they roll up their sleeves and, um, record pop songs. Ten of them. And they're really quite good. My understanding of Japanese is just shy of nothing, but the lyrics at least *sing* well most of the time - I can't comment on content. "Lotus Love" remains my favorite YMO track - a midtempo (love?) song with the occasional English lyric here and there (it certainly sounds quite serious, but what to make of the lyric "Blah blah blah" near the end?). The opening "Kimi Ni Muni Kyun" (guessing at the spelling there) is an uptempo number later decently covered by Human League. Other highlights include "Expecting Rivers" (another fast engaging number) and the abbreviated "You've Got to Help Yourself", which finds the best parts of the songs from SERVICE and condenses it into 30 seconds. Hardly groundbreaking, but this is the one I put on the most often."