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This unpredictability repeats throughout, which tends to derail the album repeatedly, despite the excellence of all of the included work. It's a fairly frustrating listen for the neophyte, veering wildly between styles the sophisticated pop of "Forbidden Colours" is followed by a more traditionally classical piano instrumental, then a Brazilian number and an orchestral piece from the soundtrack of The Last Emperor. Unfortunately, Moto.Tronic doesn't do much to clarify things. It's probably one of the main reasons why someone of Sakamoto's obvious talent hasn't become better known in North America, despite some very pop-oriented collaborations with popular musicians like Thomas Dolby and Iggy Pop - the sheer number of Sakamoto projects is intimidating enough, and not knowing what type of music he's playing on any particular album is probably enough to scare away most of the rest of his potential audience. The difficulty with this is that it's very hard to get a handle on Sakamoto, and surely some of the people who enjoyed the pop sensibilities of albums like Neo Geo or Beauty may have been thrown off by the classical and soundtrack work in between - and vice versa. The problem with any proper retrospective of Ryuichi Sakamoto's work is summed up with a quote from the man himself just inside the front cover of the booklet for this collection: "I want to break down the walls between genres, categories or cultures." It's easy to say that he's succeeded in that desire since leaving the pioneering electro pop outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto has worked in many different genres, including Japanese pop, world, classical, experimental, soundtrack, and sophisticated, adult-friendly pop music.