is a mini-album and the third

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

Yellow Magic Orchestra Yellow Magic Orchestra (abbreviated to YMO) was a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards, vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums, lead vocals, occasional keyboards) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards, ...

released in 1980. It contains a mixture of songs and instrumentals by YMO (including a humorous reworking of

Archie Bell & the Drells Archie Bell & the Drells was an American R&B vocal group from Houston and one of the main acts produced by Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff in the late 1960s before the duo formed their highly successful label Philadelphia International Records ...

' "Tighten Up"), interspersed with comedy sketches. These sketches are performed by Snakeman Show in both Japanese and English, with YMO participating in some of them.

Reception

Upon release, the US version was well received by the ''

Stereo Review ''Sound & Vision'' was an American magazine, purchased by AVTech Media Ltd. (UK) in March 2018, covering home theater, audio, video and multimedia consumer products. Before 2000, it had been published for most of its history as ''Stereo Review' ...

'', which described the recording as "terrific" and the performance as "

Techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often ...

-pop fun." The magazine stated that the "time is right" for the band's "highly technological blend of

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

rhythms, heavy metal, and pop melodies" while noting that "Rydeen" in particular "sprints by at a fast clip, ticking off a sprightly tune against a continuous bass-and-drum texture," though the "more rock-style efforts" were not as well received, with the magazine stating that "YMO's electronic tricks" and "the rock sensibility just don't seem to mix." ''

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

'' later reviewed the Japanese version, describing the record as a "bizarre album" and scoring it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Release history

''×∞Multiplies'' was released in several formats worldwide. The original Japanese pressing came on 10" vinyl. The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

pressing compiled tracks from both this record and from ''

Solid State Survivor ''Solid State Survivor'' is the second album by Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra, released in 1979. Later, ''Solid State Survivor'' was released in 1982 in the UK on LP and cassette, also in 1992 in the United States on CD, b ...

'', which had not been released there, while dropping the comedy sketches; the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

released ''×∞Multiplies'' with additional tracks culled from ''

''. All re-issues from 2003 onward reverted to the original Japanese track list (the version with the American track list had been re-issued various times over the years until 1999, when both Japanese and American issues were remastered under Haruomi Hosono's supervision and each received a new set of liner notes—the Japanese by Fantastic Plastic Machine and the American by Derrick May). The tracks differ slightly between the Japanese and US versions: In the original release Nice Age has an abrupt ending and other tracks crossfade between the Snakeman Show sketches; in the US version these have clean intros and endings and Jingle 'YMO' is listed as part of the Nice Age track.

Track listing

Japanese version

American version

Some pressings included "Tighten Up" as the opening track for side one.

European version

On this pressing, the first "Snakeman Show" is actually "Jingle “Y.M.O.”", while the second "Snakeman Show" is the "Mister Ōhira" skit from the Japanese pressing. "Tighten Up" does not include the "Here We Go Again" section on vinyl, but this is featured on the cassette.

Personnel

*Yellow Magic Orchestra –

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

, directors,

mixing engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

s ** Haruomi Hosono –

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

, synth Bass, keyboards, production **

Ryuichi Sakamoto was a Music of Japan, Japanese musician, composer, keyboardist, record producer, singer and actor. He pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the Synthesizer, synth-based band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his ...

– keyboards ** Yukihiro Takahashi –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, electronic drums,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

, mannequin

costume design Costume design is the process of selecting or creating clothing for a performers. A costume may be designed from scratch or may be designed by combining existing garments. "Costume" may also refer to the style of dress particular to a nation, a ...

Snakeman Show – counterparts *Moichi Kuwahara – voice on "Jingle “Y.M.O.”",

script supervisor A script supervisor (also called continuity supervisor or script) is a member of a film crew who oversees the continuity of the motion picture including dialogue and action during a scene. The script supervisor may also be called upon to ensure wa ...

*Katsuya Kobayashi – voice on "Tighten Up" & "Here We Go Again" *Masato Ibu – voice on "Tighten Up" & "The End of Asia" Guest musicians * Hideki Matsutake – microcomposer programming * Chris Mosdell –

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

, voice on "Citizens of Science" * Kenji Ōmura –

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

* Sandii – vocals on "Nice Age" * Mika Fukui – voice on "Nice Age" *The Studio Doo Wap – script supervisors Staff * Shōrō Kawazoe – executive producer *Mitsuo Koike – recording and mixing engineer *Norio Yoshizawa, Atsushi Saito, Yasuhiko Terada & Michitaka Tanaka – recording engineers * Takahisa Kamijyo –

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

*Kiichi Ichida (Cinq Art) – mannequin modeling * Masayoshi Sukita –

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

US/Europe versions alternative staff *Sakamoto – vocoded vocals,

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into ele ...

, percussion,

orchestration Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble, such as a concert band) or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orch ...

* Makoto Ayukawa – electric guitar on "Day Tripper" and "Solid State Survivor" *Sandii – vocals on "Absolute Ego Dance" * Kunihiko Murai and Kawazoe – executive producers *Yoshizawa – recording engineers, remix *Saito & Koike – recording engineers * Al Schmitt – mixing engineer *Mike Reese –

mastering engineer Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the Audio mixing (recorded music), final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source ...

*Shunsuke Miyasumi, Masako Hikasa & Akira Ikuta – recording coordinators * Tommy LiPuma – supervisor

Charts

''×∞Multiplies'' was the eighth best selling album of 1980 in Japan
– the best selling was ''

'' as sales continued from the previous year.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:X Multiplies Yellow Magic Orchestra albums Alfa Records albums 1980 EPs 1980 in Japanese music