COMPOSER

Ryuichi Sakamoto

1952 - 2023

Photo of Ryuichi Sakamoto

Icon of person Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japanese: 坂本 龍一, Hepburn: Sakamoto Ryūichi, January 17, 1952 – March 28, 2023) was a Japanese composer, pianist, record producer, and actor who pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres. Sakamoto began his career as a session musician, producer, and arranger, while he was at university in the 1970s. His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of YMO. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Ryuichi Sakamoto has received more than 3,911,846 page views. His biography is available in 46 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 37 in 2019). Ryuichi Sakamoto is the 155th most popular composer (up from 243rd in 2019), the 88th most popular biography from Japan (up from 169th in 2019) and the most popular Japanese Composer.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is most famous for his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra and for his film scores for the films Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and The Last Emperor.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.9M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 65.28

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 46

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 5.12

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.48

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among COMPOSERS

Among composers, Ryuichi Sakamoto ranks 155 out of 1,451Before him are Ottorino Respighi, Adrian Willaert, Enrique Granados, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, and Michel Legrand. After him are Vincenzo Galilei, Michael Haydn, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Ferruccio Busoni, Komitas, and Siegfried Wagner.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1952, Ryuichi Sakamoto ranks 23Before him are Christopher Reeve, Salome Zourabichvili, Jostein Gaarder, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Sammo Hung, and Hun Sen. After him are Jeff Goldblum, Cyril Ramaphosa, Oleg Blokhin, Zoran Đinđić, Laura Branigan, and Vahid Halilhodžić. Among people deceased in 2023, Ryuichi Sakamoto ranks 42Before him are Robert Solow, László Sólyom, Renata Scotto, Matthew Perry, Antonio Negri, and William Friedkin. After him are Paul Berg, Wolfgang Schäuble, Martin Amis, Karel Schwarzenberg, Rosalynn Carter, and Pervez Musharraf.

Others Born in 1952

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Others Deceased in 2023

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In Japan

Among people born in Japan, Ryuichi Sakamoto ranks 88 out of 6,245Before him are Tōgō Heihachirō (1848), Yoshihide Suga (1948), Kiichiro Toyoda (1894), Himiko (175), Shin'ichirō Tomonaga (1906), and Sakamoto Ryōma (1836). After him are Joe Hisaishi (1950), Tadamichi Kuribayashi (1891), Kōbō Abe (1924), Kūkai (774), Emperor Itoku (-553), and Prince Shōtoku (574).

Among COMPOSERS In Japan

Among composers born in Japan, Ryuichi Sakamoto ranks 1After him are Ichirou Mizuki (1948), Toru Takemitsu (1930), Miki Matsubara (1959), Shunsuke Kikuchi (1931), Kenji Kawai (1957), Toshi Ichiyanagi (1933), Koichi Sugiyama (1931), Koji Kondo (1961), Keiko Abe (1937), Nobuo Uematsu (1959), and Akira Ifukube (1914).