Behind the Mask (Yellow Magic Orchestra song)
| "Behind the Mask" | |
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| Song by Yellow Magic Orchestra | |
| Published | 1978 |
| Released | 25 September 1979 |
| Genre | Synthpop |
| Writer(s) | Composer: Ryuichi Sakamoto Lyricist: Chris Mosdell |
| Language | English |
| Producer(s) | Haruomi Hosono |
| "Behind the Mask" | |||||||||
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| Single by Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto | |||||||||
| from the album Solid State Survivor | |||||||||
| Released | 1978 (commercial), 1979 (studio release), 1987 (Sakamoto's solo release) |
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| Format | CD, vinyl, 12" | ||||||||
| Genre | Electronic, new wave, synthpop | ||||||||
| Length | 3:35 | ||||||||
| Label | Midi Inc. | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | Chris Mosdell (lyrics) Ryuichi Sakamoto (music) |
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| Producer(s) | Haruomi Hosono | ||||||||
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| "Behind the Mask" | |
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| Single by Greg Phillinganes | |
| from the album Pulse | |
| A-side | Behind the Mask |
| B-side | Only You |
| Released | 1985 |
| Format | CD, vinyl, 12" |
| Genre | Funk, soul, synthpop |
| Length | 4:07 |
| Label | Planet |
| Writer(s) | Chris Mosdell (lyrics) Ryuichi Sakamoto (music) Michael Jackson (additional lyrics) |
| Producer(s) | Richard Perry |
| "Behind the Mask" | |
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| Single by Eric Clapton | |
| from the album August | |
| B-side | Grand Illusion |
| Released | 1987 |
| Format | 12", 45 RPM |
| Recorded | 1986 |
| Genre | Rock, Pop Rock, synthpop |
| Length | 4:47 |
| Label | Warner Bros. |
| Writer(s) |
Ryuichi Sakamoto Chris Mosdell (original lyrics) Michael Jackson (additional lyrics, uncredited) |
| Producer(s) | Phil Collins Tom Dowd |
"Behind the Mask" is a synthpop song by electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, written by member Ryuichi Sakamoto and first produced in 1978 for a Seiko commercial. It was later released in 1979 as part of the band's album Solid State Survivor with English lyrics added by Chris Mosdell.
The song has been performed by many artists since its original release. In the early 1980s, Michael Jackson wrote additional lyrics for the song with an accompanying melody; this version has been recorded by himself, Greg Phillinganes, Eric Clapton, and Ryuichi Sakamoto (as a solo artist), among others.
"Behind the Mask" was a track from Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1979 album Solid State Survivor, with English lyrics by Chris Mosdell sung by Ryuichi Sakamoto using a vocoder. Sakamoto already had the melody line when he asked poet and lyricist Mosdell to write lyrics, which he based on the imagery of a Japanese traditional Noh mask, combined with a poem by Irish poet W.B. Yeats called, "The Mask."
Mosdell has said of the lyrics that "I was talking about a very impersonal, socially controlled society, a future technological era, and the mask represented that immobile, unemotional state."
It was the first studio recording of this song, although the band had originally produced it as an instrumental in 1978, when the song first appeared in a Seiko quartz wristwatch commercial and was then played live in concert that same year. In 1980, the song was released as a single in the UK with the B-side as "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)", and it was included in the US and European versions of the band's next studio album x∞Multiplies that same year.
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