JAPAN - ADOLESCENT SEX @ 45

 

Released this day, on April 8th, 1978, the debut LP from UK band Japan, Adolescent Sex, is celebrating 45 years on the shelves. At the time of its release, the band were still miles away from where they’d end up, creating a document of awkwardly fused glam and punk rock struggling to find an identity.

Founded in 1974 by brothers David & Steven Batt (later sir names changed to Sylvian & Jansen, respectively), along with schoolmates, Mick Karn, Richard Barbieri and Rob Dean, the band began from scratch by teaching themselves how to play their instruments. The name, Japan, was initially intended only as a temporary moniker, but it ended up being permanent when nothing better came along that suited their tastes. By 1976, they’d developed enough as musicians to catch the attention of Simon Napier-Bell, who signed a management deal with them. SNB also managed bands such as The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan's T-Rex, London and Wham! After winning a label-sponsored talent contest, the band signed a recording contract with the German disco label Hansa-Ariola in 1977, becoming an alternative glam rock outfit in the mold of Lou Reed, David Bowie, T.Rex, Roxy Music, and the New York Dolls although their initial material was principally guitar-based funk.

When you put it all together: the frizzled hair, gobs of makeup, snotty sneering and gritty punk-funk grooves - it didn’t make a lot of sense and the few press comments they got at their debut were generally dismissive and disparaging. Trouser Press wrote that the album "introduces Japan in all its guitar-rock misery, playing such Bowie-influenced tripe as 'Wish You Were Black' with less style than a sense of urgency". They were promising musicians, but the whole look and sound seemed like it was out of place in every sense compared to what else was going on in the industry. There was little indication that they’d be capable of morphing into the harbingers of “New Romantic” sophistication which would become their final form only a bit more than a year later with their third LP, Quiet Life. When the debut album was released internationally, many countries put it out with an eponymous title, taking offense to the sexual suggestiveness of the original. In the UK, the sales for their debut were pretty dismal, yet thanks to their name, they quickly developed a devoted and significant following in the country from which they'd borrowed their name, the land of the rising sun, Japan. The debut album was followed by a UK tour supporting Blue Öyster Cult. Intended to promote the album Japan faced more negative criticism and hostile audiences. In August 1978 their second single "The Unconventional" failed to chart. In November, the band also made a short US tour, but although they were better accepted by American audiences it proved to be their last and only foray into US soil.

Retrospectively, the band has little love for their debut. David Sylvian later commented that they were far too young and naive to be making an album at that point in their career and he was surprised they were encouraged and supported in pursing such a misguided product. Still, fans of their later work, myself included, found themselves backtracking into these early albums and, while both amused and bemused by the difference to the band we later came to adore, still consider these works as charming in their innocence and determination. And there’s even the odd song or two that still merits a listen again. AllMusic retrospectively gave the album a 4.5 out of 5 grade, writing: "A more exciting album than just about anything else they'd ever record, Japan were young, hungry, and more than a little rough around the edges." I don’t agree with that assessment of their later work by any means, but it’s still nice that their debut has garnered some respect after all these years.

JAPAN - TIN DRUM @ 40

 

November 13th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Japan’s fifth and final studio album, Tin Drum, which was issued on this date in 1981. It would become the band’s most commercially and critically successful album, decisively pulling them out of the shadows of any previous comparisons to bands like Roxy Music and into a sound that was entirely their own.

Only a few years earlier, the band had emerged as a bunch of out-of-step glam-rock, lipstick and dyed-hair pretty boys. This was right in the middle of the punk explosion! How they ended up in the lofty artistic position they found themselves in with this last album is something of a marvel of improbability. Where their first two albums, when they garnered any attention at all, tended to attract mostly scorn and ridicule, Quiet Life and Gentlemen Take Polaroids were committed to the Herculean task of rehabilitating their credibility and the pieces came into their sharpest arrangement on Tin Drum.

Given the Eastern inclination of their name, which they bore as a burden in some ways, the idea of diving headlong into Asian influences may have been inevitable, but I don’t think anyone was prepared for what they’d do with them. As musicians, they’d been grossly underestimated and Tin Drum put to bed any lingering doubts about their capabilities. The album is complex, intricate and dazzling in its array of textures and tones. As far as mastering the tools of the modern day, they found ways to put synthesizers and sequencers to work for them in tandem with more tradition percussion instruments in ways that became completely idiosyncratic to them. Nothing else on the airwaves came close to this sound and it was entirely their own creation.

By the time recording began on the album, guitarist Rob Dean had departed thanks to the reduced reliance on guitar as a central component of their sound. With the emphasis on keyboards, David Sylvian was more than able to handling what little guitar duties were called for. This allowed the rhythm section of Steve Jansen on drums and Mick Karn on fretless bass to push forward even more and create a framework of rich complexity, though never so indulgent as to work against the integrity of the music. Nothing sounds cluttered or overwrought on the album. There’s a lot going on at any given point, save for the minimal hit single, Ghosts, but it’s all meticulously balanced. Richard Barbieri shines on the keyboards as he augments Karn and Jansen with an expansive sound palette that seem to come from an entirely exclusive reservoir. And David Sylvian, of course, brings it all together with his inventive, evocative lyrics and sultry croon.

It seemed like they were just hitting their stride with this album, so it’s all the more confounding that it would be their swan song. They’d put out a live album in 1983 recorded on the tour that supported Tin Drum, but that was it. A brief reunion would happen ten years after Tin Drum for the Rain Tree Crow project, though that didn’t garner significant attention, despite being a very satisfying album. Perhaps it was best for their legacy for them to have gone out on such a stunning high note. It ultimately worked to reinforce their legend and highlight the trajectory they traveled, from dismissed objects of scorn to the peak of critical respectability, all in less than a half decade. I came on board the Japan wagon with Quiet Life in 1979, so that album, Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) and Tin Drum form a fabulous trifecta of musical distinction. They all continue to find themselves creeping into rotation at regular intervals. In fact, I find myself listening to them in recent years even more than I did when these albums originally came out. Time has only highlighted their assets and deepened my appreciation for them.

40 YEARS BEING QUIET - THE LIFE OF JAPAN

December 20th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Japan’s third LP, Quiet Life, issued on this date in 1979.

If I remember correctly, it must have been very early in 1980 when I came across it in my local record shop back in Thunder Bay, ON.  I’m not sure if I’d ever heard of the band before seeing the record.  I don’t recall them being mentioned in the music press before that album.  Maybe a stray ad for one of their first two albums might have crossed my sight line without garnering much notice.  

The cover of Quiet Life, however, made an immediate impact.  David Sylvian looked so cool.  Goddamn he was one suave fucker, to paraphrase Frank Booth!  That Andy Warhol bleach blonde hair, the “talk to the hand” gesture, the porcelain skin and those lipstick red lips, all soft-focused in overexposed white light, like he was walking past heaven, but couldn’t be bothered.  Mick Karn was on the back cover looking almost as pretty and, inside the gate-fold sleeve, the remaining three band members were similarly posed in their fashionable finery.  They still had this hint of their glam roots showing, but they’d cleaned it up with some “new wave” hipness which kept the androgyny in tact without it seeming sleazy.   

Japan were the forbears of the “New Romantic” look, which would explode soon after with bands like Duran Duran, who shamelessly pilfered Japan’s look, in my opinion.  But what would soon become apparent upon listening to the record was that these were not just a bunch of glamour boys with a fashion fetish.  These guys could actually play and compose some amazing music.  They were all self taught and, after their initial dalliances with crass exploitation, their 3rd album found a balance between image and substance and a certain legitimacy took hold in their sound and subject matter that didn’t feel forced or put on.  

Prior to this album, Japan had been heavily laden with a "New York Dolls" kind of trashiness.  It came across as slightly vulgar and excessive, though not quite as crude as Johansen & company.  David’s singing style on Japan's first two LPs was a sort of whine, like a spoiled brat and there was this swagger to their approach that came off as vaguely pretentious.  The songs, however, weren’t total trash.  In fact, they had some decent hooks, though the lyrics were occasionally naive and juvenile.  Technically, they were accomplished musicians, but it was all painted and powdered up with so much foundation, lip-gloss and neon hair that it was often laughable as a total package.

Then came the single, Life In Tokyo, and working with producer Giorgio Moroder, which set the band suddenly deflecting into another trajectory.  Though David’s voice still had its bratty snarl, the music clicked into a cool Euro-disco pulse thanks to Georgio and he handed them the keys to reshaping their identity.  Life In Tokyo was issued in April of 1979 and, by the time Quiet Life came out in December, the transformation from slutty rock prostitutes to cool handed romantics was complete.  Now, they were more late stage Roxy Music than New York Dolls, but with some Berlin Bowie iciness added to their sound to sculpt them into a sleek techno-new-wave machine.  

The title track for the album kicks it off with echoes of that Moroder-style synth pulse from Richard Barbieri.  Mick’s fretless bass slips into it’s undercurrent and gives the tight, metronome perfect disco beat from Steve Jansen something rubbery to bounce against.  Rob Dean’s guitar slices in with minimal, clean rhythmic slashes that make the whole thing glint with a sheen like a well polished luxury car. Then David debuts his new crooner baritone voice and sings a song about detachment and departing, leaving the old behind and looking forward.  It’s a perfect way to display this shiny new version of Japan as they propel into an album that cruises effortlessly from one pristine track to the next.

In spite of the impeccable perfectionism displayed in the production of this LP, it never comes across as overwrought, contrived or lacking spontaneity.  The balance within the arrangements always retains a sense of proportion and things like solos and fills are delivered with a meticulous restraint that is strictly dedicated to serving the greater good of the song as a whole.  As glamorous and glowing as it all appears, it doesn’t feel showy or ostentatious. It’s tasteful and constrained, but driven by a taut energy that keeps the momentum going forward at all times. At a mere 8 songs, the album is a concise expression of their newfound oeuvre.  All the tracks are Sylvian compositions save for a cover of Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground classic, All Tomorrow’s Parties, which is rendered like a spectral dream.  The track begins and ends with an asynchronous looping synth refrain that creates the sense of entering into another dimension.  

Japan would go on to do 2 more stunning studio albums after this, each one pushing their creative potential to new heights.  But creative differences would take their tole by the time Tin Drum made them a household name (at least in the UK) and their final tour in support of that album would become their epitaph with the release of the live LP, Oil on Canvas.  Post breakup, solo careers would deliver many more albums of exceptional music with varying degrees of success, but nothing near the popularity of the band at its peak.  A short-lived reunion as Rain Tree Crow in the early 1990s delivered one more stellar album of original material before they went back to their solo careers.  The death of Mick Karn in 2011 was a tragic blow to fans of the band as his presence was a key ingredient in giving them their distinctive sound.  Japan has since managed to establish a legacy that shows every sign of lasting along with other greats from the era.  All of it truly started to come into focus with the Quiet Life LP.