YMMV / Yellow Magic Orchestra (Album)

• Covered Up: The band's rendition of "Firecracker" got so popular that it rendered the Martin Denny original into complete obscurity beyond the scope of more devoted YMO fans.
• Eclipsed by the Remix: The 1979 US mix by Al Schmitt is generally much better-known than the original 1978 Japanese mix by Haruomi Hosono. Part of this is due to the Schmitt mix being the only version officially available outside of Japan before 2003, but even in Japan it overtook the Hosono mix in popularity and was even functionally adopted by the band as the canonical version of the album, to the extent where the Hosono mix took until 1992 to see a CD release in its home country (CD releases before then exclusively used the Schmitt version). To this day, the Schmitt mix is the one most heavily prioritized in reissues; on double-CD and double-LP releases that contain both versions, Schmitt's version is consistently placed on disc one.
• Periphery Demographic: While the album wasn't a major hit among the mainstream American audiences that A&M marketed it to, it became a much bigger success among urban listeners, with its much higher R&B chart performance marking an immediate black following that would lead to YMO serving as a key influence in the development of both Hip-Hop and techno.
• Signature Song: "Firecracker" tends to be the band's best-known track outside of Japan (barring "Behind the Mask", which was Covered Up by both Eric Clapton and especially Michael Jackson), being a surprise hit that remains a staple of hip-hop and R&B samples. To this day, most people's familiarity with YMO will typically come from "Firecracker" first and foremost.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The album does a good job avoiding it for the most part, except for the "Computer Game" duology and "Acrobat", which very heavily reflect the early years of The Golden Age of Video Games, an era that would die out shortly after YMO's first dissolution thanks to a combination of The Great Video Game Crash of 1983 and the runaway worldwide success of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Additionally, of the games parodied in those tracks, only Space Invaders is widely remembered nowadays, with Circus and Gun Fight generally being remembered only by both devoted YMO fans and hardcore arcade game enthusiasts.

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