Taiso

Taiso (or 'Gymnastics' in English) is a song by Yellow Magic Orchestra from their 1981 album Technodelic.

Origin
The song was the first one that the band worked on for the Technodelic project. The song was inspired by Hosono's obsession with John Cage's prepared piano pieces at the time, and he expressed a desire to use those sounds in a pop context. Inspired by the idea, Sakamoto wrote the basis of the song, with Peter Barakan helping with the lyrics and the rest of the band fleshing out the music.

Recording
While the song's parent album, Technodelic, is known for its advanced use of samplers, the LMD-649, the band's go-to sampler at the time, hadn't yet been finished. Because of that, most of the sampling heard in the song (such as the repeated voice clip in the middle) was actually done using tape loops. Many of the sampled voices heard on the track are the band members themselves.

Release
The song was first released on November 21, 1981, on the Technodelic album. Soon after its release, the song was selected by Alfa to be the album's sole single cut. The single was released on February 21, 1982, with Key on the B-side. It was also released in Spain with Light in Darkness on the B-side.

To promote the single, the band shot a music video directed by American new wave band Talking Heads. The video features the band exercising in colourful attire. Takahashi's manager at the time, Hiromi Kanai, appears as a model in the video. The video also features a cartoon girl drawn by Hosono.

Live releases
Though performances of the song were exclusive to their 1981 Winter Live tour, it was one of the more elaborate songs in their set, often featuring a wide array of dancers exercising to the music onstage and with Sakamoto shouting into a megaphone.