Technopolis

Technopolis is a song by Yellow Magic Orchestra, first released as the opening track on their 1979 album Solid State Survivor. It was also their first single release.

Origins
The song was written at a time when Sakamoto was very heavily into the Japanese pop idol group Pink Lady. Based on his suggestion, the group performed an instrumental rendition of their song Wanted during their 1978 tours. He explained that in order to write the song, he analyzed the structure of his favorite Pink Lady songs and tried to break it down into an instrumental song similar in style to the group's cover of Wanted.

Recording
The song's recording started on March 6, 1979. Though most YMO songs at this point involved manually sequenced synth parts courtesy of computer programmer Hideki Matsutake, Sakamoto made the conscious decision to perform a large majority of the parts (about 70%, according to Matsutake) by hand. The band would continue to flesh out the song over the next few months, with the final dubbing session for the song taking place in May.

The now-iconic vocoder sections were recorded by Sakamoto using a Roland VP-330. The vocoded 'Tokio' that starts off the song was meant to mimic a bus station announcement. The vocoder parts have gone on to become one of the most emblematic examples of vocoder usage in Japan.

Release
The song was first released on YMO's sophomore album Solid State Survivor on September 25, 1979. One month later, the song would be released as the band's first single on October 25, 1979, with Solid State Survivor as a B-side. The song would go on to reach #9 on the Oricon charts.

Live performances
As one of the band's most recognized songs, the song has been performed during all of the band's tours. Though it was briefly dropped in favor of more recent material for their 1981 Winter Live Tour, the band would bring the song back as an encore tune for later dates.