Trivia / Solid State Survivor

• Feelies: The original LP release was pressed on translucent yellow vinyl, a move carried over from promotional US copies of the band's debut (retail copies of the US mix though used standard black vinyl); the gimmick would be repeated with Service four years later.
• Late Export for You: Despite being a critical and commercial success in its native Japan, Solid State Survivor was not released internationally at first. Instead, select songs from Solid State Survivor appeared on the heavily altered international version of ×∞Multiplies, replacing the multilingual "Snakeman Show" skits and "The End of Asia". Solid State Survivor wouldn't come to foreign shores until the 1982 British LP and cassette releases, and its first wide international release wouldn't be until the 1992 remasters of the band's back-catalog, which with the exception of their debut album is based around the band's Japanese releases.
• Referenced by...:
  • "Behind the Mask" was covered by Michael Jackson, Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton, The Human League, and Sakamoto himself, the latter four of which were all based on Jackson's rewrite of the song.
  • The Dragon Ball Z insert song "Solid State Scouter" (played in Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku) is named as such as a homage to this album.
  • YMO bandleader Haruomi Hosono's 1982 solo track "Sports Men" opens its second verse with "I'm not sleeping these days, maybe insomniac," nodding back to "Insomnia" off of this album.
  • The anime adaptation of Sound! Euphonium features Kitauji performing a marching band Cover Version of "Rydeen" for the SunFes.
  • Dance covers of "Technopolis" and "Behind the Mask" appear on the homepage of the official website of prolific web animator Joel Guerra, best known for the ENA series.
  • Chiptune covers of "Rydeen" appear in a number of titles from The 8-bit Era of Console Video Games, including Super Locomotive, Trooper Truck, Daley Thompson's Decathlon, and Stryker's Run.
• What Could Have Been: The US version of ×∞Multiplies, which was cobbled together from both Solid State Survivor and the Japanese version of ×∞Multiplies, had its first test pressings made under the title of Solid State Survivor, which would've technically made ×∞Multipliess the album that A&M skipped over, not this. The original title stuck around long enough to appear in retailer pamphlets in June of 1980, complete with cover art based on that of the "Rydeen" single release (which at the time was only available in Japan), but A&M ultimately decided to title it after the later of the two albums that their record was pieced together from (likely to dissuade import copies by making them appear caught up with Alfa's releases).
• Working Title:
  • "Rydeen" was originally put together under the name "Raideen", a Shout-Out to the sumo wrestler Raideen Tameemon; the track ended up being renamed after the anime of the same name became popular in the United States.
  • "Castalia" was originally written with the name "Suspiria", a nod to the film of the same name.

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