Yukihiro Takahashi, the musician best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the world-renowned group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), passed away on January 11 from aspiration pneumonia due to a brain tumor. He was 70.
Takahashi announced in 2020 that he underwent surgery for a brain tumor, and he had been receiving treatment since then.
Takahashi was born in Tokyo, and was already working as a studio musician while he was still in high school. During college, he first performed as the drummer of Sadistic Mika Band (which the late Kazuhiko Katoh founded in 1972), and the band later toured in the United Kingdom and other countries.
Takahashi then formed YMO with Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1978. YMO‘s pioneering technopop sound with synthesizers became popular not only in Japan,…
