The Beatniks are an alternative rock duo formed by Yellow Magic Orchestra drummer/singer Yukihiro Takahashi and Keiichi Suzuki.The duo's debut album featured vocals mostly in English, with the rest in French. In 2017, the band recorded the theme song for NHK TV's J-Melo, 'Softly Softly', in collaboration with Leo Imai. In 2018 the band released their first album in seven years, Exitentialist A Xie Xie.They then undertook live performances, despite Takahashi recently having had surgery on his eyes.