Behind the mask
Yellow Magic Orchestra and Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones were an unformidable pair. While previously acquainted for years, the two only got to work together around 1978, seemingly by chance. They did have that 'greatest selling record of all time' together. Both were open to evolution in music technology - they had, after all, lived through the different decades and knew about the pitfalls of resisting change firsthand.
"Behind the Mask" is a synth pop recording by Japanese electro-pop trio YMO (Yellow Music Orchestra) and was intended for a Seiko watches commercial in 1978. The band ended up re-recording the song, with added vocals, using the track for their 1979 sophomore album Solid State Survivor. The song was composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who sings the vocals through a vocoder.
Sakamoto had an initial melodic first draft, to which he asked Chris Mosdell, a British poet based in Japan at the time, to write the lyrics. Mosdell pitched song lyrics he had come up with; Sakamoto then fleshed out the rest of the composition.
The song made its way around the world to different artists and ended up appearing on Michael Jackson's radar. Quincy Jones stumbled upon the YMO song during travel to Tokyo, immediately falling in love with it. This was during the recording sessions for Thriller, and Jones found it to be perfect for the album's overall feel and sound. He pitched it to Jackson, who hadn't required much persuasion.
Sakamoto had a solo career while simultaneously in YMO, and he was quite prolific in his own right. Haruomi Hosono had largely led the YMO, which started out as Hosono with two hired session musicians - Sakamoto being one. YMO is credited with having pioneered electronic music genres such as early Hip Hop; Sakamoto enjoys similar recognition as a solo artist, independently of the YMO legacy.
Ryuichi Sakamoto would release an experimental electrofusion solo album called A Thousand Knives in 1978, the same year YMO put out their debut album. His record departed from the YMO sound marked by a significant sampling of computer and video game sounds. Sakamoto's music experiments and explores various themes YMO might have left untouched and are notably influenced by his earlier studies in music theory and ethnomusicology. It was his sophomore album, B-2 Unit, released in 1980, that would go on to shape the genre now known as Hip Hop - while still in its infancy. "Riot in Lagos," off of that album, had influences on Hip Hop pioneers such as Afrika Bambaataa and Kurtis Mantronik.
"Behind the Mask" is an early synth-driven record with an arrangement style and instrumentation much adopted in today's electronic music. The song generally uses a combination of synth waveforms, ranging from clean to slightly more buzzy sounds. A light arpeggiated synthesizer, playing broken chords, opens the song. Another keyboard synthesizer, heavier and with a bit more harmonics, plays the central riff - adding a funky groove to the song. Sakamoto, wielding his superb command of melodic writing, sings the vocals with a vocoder.
The Michael Jackson version of 1982, as far as vocals are concerned, is altogether different. There is added production here and there, but overall, it is the same Sakamoto production. The song does, nonetheless, suit Jackson's album perfectly well. It is hard to conceive that this was not a Thriller session production from team Michael.
Permission for Michael Jackson's use of the song was at the outset given. However, there was one caveat: it appears permission came only from Mosdell, the author of the original YMO version. And so, as the story goes, a legal dispute with YMO's management prevented the song from being on Thriller and was only released on Jackson's posthumous 2010 album Michael.
That version is the original recorded version by Jackson in '82, with added production - called an 'overdubbed' production, attempting to make it sound contemporary to 2010. The original version Jackson recorded decades ago - available on platforms like YouTube as a "demo" - is clearly from the Thriller era and should be a treat for the fans.
"Behind the Mask" is particularly revered, so much so that other artists like Greg Phillinganes (Michael Jackson's keyboardist and music director), Eric Clapton, and Señor Coconut had covered it in '84, '86, and '06, respectively. Ryuichi Sakamoto himself would release another version in a solo effort in 1987.
