The Top 30 Albums of 1978: # 9

Japan
Adolescent Sex

We're back in Nina Simone territory again--you aren't supposed to pay attention to Adolescent Sex. No, there's another Japan release from 1978, Obscure Alternatives, and that's the one that you're supposed to get behind. "Who says," you cry. "Tell them to bugger off, UK style, in keeping with the band's actual homeland", you snarl. "Tell me this person's name, so that I might include it in my post-nighttime-prayer mockery", you demand.

David Sylvian, the goddamn lead singer, that's who.

awww, what the fuck does that guy know.

Sylvian, along with his "mates", where only teenagers when Japan signed up with German record label Hansa in the mid 70's. Hansa's incredibly good taste--they put out David Bowie's Low and Heroes as well as Iggy Pop's Idiot and Lust for Life--eventually got them purchased and incorporated into the BMG empire, and during the late 70's, it was obvious why--the label couldn't do anything wrong. Besides Japan, Bowie and Iggy, the label also saw a nice fat paycheck with Boney M, which might have been why they had the money to get behind a bunch of teenagers too young to show anything but future promise. Japan's two 1978 albums didn't perform as well--despite a Wikipedia-rumored success, oddly enough, in Japan (the country)--but they did bring forth a sound that isn't really like anything else you'll find on this countdown. Sure, you'll find disparate strands of it--"The Unconventional" ends with a Goblin style outtro, the melodic layering of vocals and Roxy Music infused twang shows up on After The Heat as well as More Songs About Buildings And Food--but the overall experience of Adolescent Sex is one that's startlingly unique for the time period. There just isn't anything else in the year that can compare.

In 1978, the track of New Wave seems to have been "let's add _____ to a punk aesthetic, and then make it poppy. Also, make-up." In that vein, Japan had it down pat: they primped their hair, they boy-ed up their faces, and they warbled a bit when it came time for high notes. The difference between what they did with Adolescent Sex, as compared to other bands that played at the Lego style of music construction, was that they kept forgetting to add the punk thing back in while recording. Instead, they chased funk guitar sounds with synthesized effects while Steve Jansen--only 19 at the time of recording--started his long trek from youthful drumming talent to the in-demand studio player for just about every strand of music imaginable that he's been for the last two decades. On top of it was David Sylvian's vocals--and while they can arguably be said to have gotten better, there's something to be said for his haunting "I'm probably going to fuck your girlfriend, maybe your dad, just saying" delivery on Adolescent Sex. Mixing his blurts and yowls so it sounds like he's got a tin can between him and the microphone, Sylvian's vocals end up taking on a sound that is at times almost inhuman; it's less singing than it is another instrument bouncing from Mick Karn's pumped up bass guitar that, if you know how to fuck with an EQ, sounds like something that belongs underneath the sauntering feet of Shaft, who I have no fucking problem talking 'bout. Even when the songs start down the direction of being another weird and clueless attempt at British white boys playing Parliament, out comes the effects, and you start to pick up on how genius it was for Method Man to use all that space-rock prog on Tical--even without the instructions to "keep on bouncing", you're already there, and you've blasted off into space, no matter that it's Richard Barbieri's keyboards and not LSD at the controls. Japan knew it too--like Silver Mt. Zion in 2008, none of these songs end remotely when they should, there's clear indication on almost every track why radio hits didn't spring forth. You can't sell anybody on a 10 minute song about how weird it is to watch television, even less so when it's got a good four minutes worth of the individual band members fucking around with their instruments.

Nowadays, Japan is mostly acknowledged as the starting place for a group of talented musicians who apparently didn't get along that well--Steve Jansen's exhaustion of discussing the various stories in last years Wire interview made it clear it's a overly-trod upon subject--but what that story fails to touch upon is what was lost when the band failed to find the global success of 1978's other two big debut albums: The Police & Van Halen. From 1978 onward, it was simple: you either got laid while drunk and listening to Van Halen, or you tried to get laid while crying and listening to the Police. If Japan had hit it just as hard?

Man, shit would totally be like the Jetsons right now.

-Tucker Stone, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

Thanks for telling me about these guys; I'm listening to them a little online and they're excellent. I'll definitely pick this up the next time I'm at the record store.

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[Chris Jones]

The Factual Opinion: You got your comics, you got your music, you got your TV, you got your hookers.