Ryuichi Sakamoto ... 'The internet recalls times when music
belonged to everybody'. Photograph: Birdsong/PR
Ryuichi Sakamoto is the multi-award winning artist, composer,
producer and musician whose many talents make him a renaissance man
of contemporary Japan. Perhaps best known for his work with
techno-pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra in the late 70s and early
80s, Sakamoto's solo career has yielded collaborations with David
Byrne, Iggy Pop and many other pop
and rock luminaries. The 57-year-old is also an outspoken
critic of copyright law, an area under particular scrutiny in
today's digital market. In an exclusive interview with
guardian.co.uk/music, Sakamoto offers his thoughts on the future of
the music industry and why performing with Yellow Magic Orchestra
is "traumatic".
1. For
the last 100 years, only a few organisations have dominated the
music world and ripped off both fans and creators. But this is an
exceptional circumstance that has only existed in the last century.
It started at the end of the 19th century, so if we look at human
history it is a very exceptional point.
2. In
the old days people shared music, they didn't care who made it; a
song would be owned by a village and anyone could sing it, change
the words, whatever. That is how humans treated music until the
late 19th century. Now with the internet we are going back to
having tribal attitudes towards music.
3. It
is hard to truly divide music from noise. When you are listening to
a record you are hearing noise and music at the same time, but your
brain splits them in two. You hear one but you are listening to
both. My concept when making music is that there is no border
between music and noise.
4. Last
year, Yellow Magic Orchestra played a one-off show in London as
guests of Massive Attack. We find it traumatic to use our band
name, because there is a lot of expectation and history attached to
it. In 2007 we were invited to play Al Gore's Live Earth, so we
appeared in Kyoto at a temple and that was the first time we used
the name Yellow Magic Orchestra as an official reunion. It was
basically just a small gift to Al Gore – I don't think he cared
about the cause, he just wanted to see us re-form for the
event!
5. Playing
in London in 1979 was exciting, it was at the start of new wave,
the transition period after punk, and there were a lot of radical,
fashionable young people on the streets and in the venues. I still
remember clearly a fashionable new wave couple in a club going to
the dancefloor when they played one of my songs, The End of Asia. I
just thought, "Wow! They are so fashionable and cool … but we were
the ones that made them dance … so, wow, we must be really cool
too!"
6. For
me change doesn't happen on a linear basis, it zig-zags back and
forth. Right now, world cultural awareness is greater than ever,
but looking at Japanese music – it has become even more insular.
Most young pop musicians here have closed minds, they just choose
the one succesful band they like and copy them. I don't think it's
good.
7. There
is a lot of bad music on MySpace, but there is also good music.
People don't make money from it – that is very strange for me.
However, I think it is new and positive, but also a return to more
tribal times when music belonged to everybody.
8. The
recession will breed new creativity.
9. We
must take care of our environment. The world is huge and there is
no way we can make sense of it all. We think of the environment in
global terms but it is too far away from our lives. So, that makes
us think there is nothing we can do about the global crisis. But
you still eat every day, you breathe air and drink water. That is
the environment within you and you are a part of
it.
10. Humans
are emitting more CO2 but losing more trees The two must be
reconciled: to create less CO2, plant more trees – it is very
simple!