Tin Drum - Japan

[lbworshiper]

Remember me? After a loooong break without the internet, guess who's back for NW classics reviews! Well, let's get back to work.

I've professed and confessed my love for early 80's music time and time again, but something about the bands from that era really bugs me. Most of them simply fired off their one or two hits, then faded away without evolving into anything greater. Even such grandiose New Wave names as Duran Duran and Adam Ant never really proved themselves capable of moving beyond their respective musical comfort zones (although I suppose both of those mentioned tried something a little different in the 90's, when the public largely cared for them no longer).

One band that gets lumped into the New Romantic movement never stopped evolving. That band, of course, is Wall Of Voodoo. Nah, just joshing you- I'm really referring to Japan. Though they only put out five studio albums in four years' time, the Japanese cannot be accused of spinning their whitewalls in the same ol' swamp of song and dance. In fact, I'd say that few bands ever shifted so radically over such a short span of time, and if you're thinking about throwing "AC/DC" out there as a candidate, then you and I will be stepping outside, mister (or miss).

You see, those who called themselves Japan started out as a sneering disco/glam outfit, them morphed into a brooding synth-driven New Wave project that sounded nothing at all like their previous incarnation. Albums sales-wise, it seems that people liked David Sylvian and Co. better once they dropped the New York Dolls pretensions and went for the smooth European image, but I do not have official access to their chart ratings or units sold stats. Guys like Duran Duran sure approved of the new Japan, since they wasted no time in ripping them off.

By 1982, the year their final album "Tin Drum" was released, the Japans had clearly had enough of one another. David Sylvian was laying it to the gal of bassist Mick Karn, guitarist Rob Dean had already jumped ship (or junk, I should say), and who knows what the other two thought. The sultry electronic direction of the previous two albums had served them reasonably well, but Sylvian (who wrote nearly all of Japan's material) just couldn't keep his obsession with Asia confined to the bassist's Japanese girlfriend. He wanted the band to become more than just another New Wave story, and opted for a sound that can best be described as General Zho's techno, or maybe Szechuanica.

I'm not the first to make this comparison, but David Sylvian does indeed resemble Sally Jesse Raphael on the album cover. He's chowing down on a bowl of rice under the deceivingly friendly gaze of Mao Tse-tung's portrait, but I don't know the meaning of this little scene. Maybe he's trying to impress the dead Chinese leader with his chopstick technique?

The music on "Tin Drum" is a perplexing blend of electronic bleeps and gurgles, matched up with the usual fretless bass wails, precise drumming, Bryan Ferry vocal impersonations, and Oriental touches. In fact, I've never heard another album that so effectively combines Western pop with Eastern music. Not even anything by Motorhead.

I guess one might call the first track, "The Art Of Parties", dance-clubbish, but I can't imagine hearing a song like this in any of the places I used to frequent. It's the sound of Sylvian's victory march, the point at which his musical ambitions completely overrode those of the other members. Still, he croons melancholy about going from young and smart to living on the edge of his nerves over a rolling tom-filled rhythm. The little guy just floats around, if that means anything to you (it shouldn't).

Karn's fretless is really up front on "Talking Drum", but it's not sailing atop a straightforward rhythm. This song is purely art at work, with touches of the Orient and the Arab world (the latter feel due to a violin). The instrumentation is sparse, the synths mostly just accent things, and Sylvian asks "what do you do when things go wrong?" Me, I reach for the gat and try to remember that soliloquy from "Pulp Fiction".

And then we reach the biggest hit the band had, a strange, gloomy piece called "Ghosts". There are no drums here, just bells, gongs, and bubbling gloomy synths cooking up an Eastern mood. David Sylvian, in his best Bryan Ferry suit, aches out a chorus that most of us (including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) can relate to:

"just when I think I'm winning,
when I've broken every door,
the ghosts of my life blow wilder than before
just when I thought I could not be stopped,
when my chance came to be king,
the ghosts of my life blow wilder than the wind"

Ah, so beautiful. And so odd, in the most somber way.

"Canton" is not only a town near Dallas where one can see a flea market, it's also an instrumental with a very hummable, very Chinese melody. The fretless gets really wild, mooing like a cow that wants to have your children, while the flutes and synths build up like something one might hear at a parade in Beijing. Can't you just see those kung fu guys swinging swords while that dragon thing snaps its jaws at spectators?

Next to "Ghosts", my other favorite here is "Still Life In Mobile Homes". Another non-standard robotic beat plays leapfrog with the fretless bass while Eastern-scented synth touches prance around. An Asian girl (possibly the same one that at least two band members were warming with sinful embraces) yodels in the middle before a guitar solo comes in with its screaming tones. David goes for the Frommer's lyrical approach, as he describes "slow boats moving with the tide/drifting far from shore" and bushlands burning "in this southern heat/like an open fire". Imagine Duran Duran trying to be artsy and ethnic instead of poppy and sexy, and you'd be right there with me.

The beat is a little more typical on "Visions Of China", kind of a Hong Kong strut. Young and strong, if a little thin, with some reedy instrument (a "dida" perhaps?) making a fuss. Sylvian's as debonair as ever, as he sings of walking backwards and saying nothing.

The kinda long, aimlessly brooding "Sons Of Pioneers" is carried primarily on the neck of Mick Karn's four-stringed instrument. Drummer David Jansen (who, by the way, is Sylvian's brother) does little things while the synths fade in and out with atmospherics, but the track is mostly devoid of any conventional beat. Not a great song, not atrocious, just there. I do like the "sometimes we sense the doubt together/sometimes alone" line.

Do we go back to Cali on the final track? No- just Canton. "Cantonese Boy" revolves around a friendly little keyboard melody, and plays out like something from Tears For Fears' "The Hurting". Still eccentric, but a little more like a normal song than the previous track. The only lyrical snippet that grabs me is "Red Army calls you", which should NOT be happening now that I'm on the "Do Not Call" list.

Before it became such a disgustingly fashionable trend, Japan reformed and played some shows. They did it under another name though, some stupid Native American-sounding thing like "Rain Tree Crow Water". Other than that one reunion, the guys in Japan have all gone on to work on equally obscure things. Perhaps Mick Karn's "Dali's Car" album with Peter Murphy is the best known, and it's not all that different from the style of "Tin Drum".

As for Sylvian, he married one of Prince's entourage, a dancer/singer named Ingrid Chavez (she is also noteworthy as the co-writer of Madonna's "Justify My Love", with Lenny Kravitz) and released a steady stream of albums few of us have heard. He worked with Can's Holger Czukay on some ambient stuff, recorded an album with King Crimson's Robert Fripp. He's been a busy guy, but I don't know that he's had a lot of success on his own.

Despite the fact that I adore "Tin Drum", I hesitate to recommend it to anybody. Every person I've played it for just looks at me in bewilderment, even fellow fans of the New Romantic movement. It probably belongs on the shelves of those who like music that splices together pop sensibilities and exotic styles, a la Peter Gabriel, Peter Murphy, or Peter Sellers. It's a shame these guys fell apart, as I would've liked to see where they woulda gone. This one's excellent, but the uninitiated should maybe start with "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" or "Quiet Life" first.

[SomebodySomewhere]

Awesome review. But I don't agree that the uninitiated should start with the earlier records. I think they should start with this one. Because it's the only one I like! "Visions of China" and "Ghosts" were the standouts, I thought. (The third UK hit, "Cantonese Boy," was eh.)

Can't recommend the s/t American bastardization on Epic Records, though. The front and back covers are hideous, a couple tracks were dropped and replaced with tracks off earlier albums, which ruined the flow, and I believe one or two of the cuts they didn't drop were edited. Why they couldn't just put the thing out as is, I have no idea.

[Frau_Blucher]

Anyone got the Cliffs Notes?!

[WolverineSyr]

I'm so glad you're back! I really enjoyed your reviews in the past. I was wondering what happened!!!

Another great job!

[lbworshiper]

[quote][i]Originally posted by WolverineSyr[/i]
<br>I'm so glad you're back! I really enjoyed your reviews in the past. I was wondering what happened!!!

Another great job!


[/quote]

Thanks, glad you like the review. I really missed reading your posts folks. Happy to be back on the board.

[Bitter Almonds]

[quote][i]Originally posted by SomebodySomewhere[/i]
Can't recommend the s/t American bastardization on Epic Records, though. The front and back covers are hideous, a couple tracks were dropped and replaced with tracks off earlier albums, which ruined the flow, and I believe one or two of the cuts they didn't drop were edited. Why they couldn't just put the thing out as is, I have no idea.
[/quote]

I didn't know Epic released a s/t album. I just checked amg and the track listing is very odd. They included "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" and "Swing" from their last album. It does ruin the flow of the Eastern-influenced album.

[SomebodySomewhere]

I'd have to look at the albums (I think they're in the attic or the basement) before I can boldly proclaim what Epic dropped and added, but the allmusic track listing isn't quite correct, because "Visions of China" is on there. "Sons of Pioneers" and "Canton" were definitely dropped, and "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" and "Taking Islands in Africa" were definitely added. I don't recall "Swing" being on there, but let me check. Oh, and "Polaroids" was the single-edit, and I think "Ghosts" had the beginning chopped up. The packaging was junk. A cheap cover and a white paper innersleeve.

[Bitter Almonds]

I saw the cover on amg and thought it was decent with a photograph of David Sylvian wearing glasses, but I prefer the bootleg covers with the whole band. Any track changes in this album wouldn't fit the theme and atmosphere. Every album of theirs is a stand alone work; you can't really mix and match. It would be like including [i]Adolescent Sex[/i] tracks in [i]Quiet Life[/i]. That was one of the coolest things about Japan - you could trace the evolution of their sound from album to album. It's also one of the reasons why I think they're one of the best bands of the movement.

[SomebodySomewhere]

The whole band is on the back cover, but I recall it being a really ugly photo. Just poorly shot, and badly blown up. You know, like those skinny-tie, red-leather-bands' records from the late '70s.

I agree with the track additions/deletions. I don't even like the tracks that they dropped, and I still think they messed up.

OK, found the track listing.

Side 1
1. The Art of Parties
2. Talking Drum
3. Ghosts
4. Gentlemen Take Polaroids
5. Still Life in Mobile Homes

Side 2
1. Visions of China
2. Taking Islands in Africa
3. Swing
4. Cantonese Boy


So "Swing" was on there after all. Huh. I'll have to pull this out of, well, wherever it's hiding, and see which tracks were altered. Because "Africa" and "Parties" apparently differed from the original album versions. My memory's obviously a bit hazy, but I think I got this in a cut-out bin sometime in the '80s. I'm pretty sure I didn't know who Japan were before that, and I just thought it looked interesting or (more likely) it was dirt cheap. And one thing I do remember is that "Visions of China" caught my ear immediately. I had convinced myself I had discovered this new band that no one had ever heard of before, and I was the only one who knew of this great "Visions of China" song, which I happily kept all to myself. Me, being the idiot teenager that I was, had more than a little egg on my face when I later discovered it was a Top 40 UK hit.

[Bitter Almonds]

Haha. Well, by the time Japan's music came to our side of the world, they were literally music history. I vaguely recall 1984 and 1985 musical chairs being played to the "latest" tune on the radio... which happened to be "The Art Of Parties." It was one of those sweet-sixteen parties and I loved to be in on what the big kids were doing at the time. I guess it stuck from then on.

If those changed tracks happen to be different from the album tracks, then you got something there. Pretty much anything after [i]Quiet Life[/i] that I've heard are album versions (thank bog for those Japanese imports of their early stuff, including a singles compilation!). [i]Oil On Canvas[/i] only had the track listing changed, but I don't think anything was added or deleted.

[Hani]

Great review on Tin Drum album. Thought no one would ever speak of it again. I've always been a Japan fan and i love David Sylvian's works. My fav from this album are Still life in Mobile Home, Canton, Visions of China, Talking Drum and Cantonese Boys. It's pretty sad that they missed out lots of great tunes in Exorcising Ghost compilation album.

[SomebodySomewhere]

[quote][i]Originally posted by XXX[/i]
If those changed tracks happen to be different from the album tracks, then you got something there. Pretty much anything after [i]Quiet Life[/i] that I've heard are album versions (thank bog for those Japanese imports of their early stuff, including a singles compilation!). [i]Oil On Canvas[/i] only had the track listing changed, but I don't think anything was added or deleted.
[/quote]

The site I looked at said "Africa" was remixed, and "Parties" was recorded. I'm no expert there.

Have you heard the Illustrated Man EP? Pretty bad, isn't it?

[Rubellan]

My overwhelming response to Tin Drum upon hearing it, after constant recommendations, was that I found it boring and pretentious. I tried, god how I tried to love it like everyone else. I played and played it, but all it managed to do was put me to sleep. This was a bad Japan album to start with. It took an additional year for me to give another album a chance, but I did and found that I enjoy Quiet Life and Gentlemen on a moderate level, as well as the traditional Life In Tokyo. That’s the extent of my interest in Japan.

Scott

[DayGloJo]

[quote][i]Originally posted by WolverineSyr[/i]
<br>I'm so glad you're back! I really enjoyed your reviews in the past. I was wondering what happened!!!

Another great job!
[/quote]

What Wolverine said. Thanks for the review, lb. "Tin Drum" was one of my favorite albums of the 80s. I can't understand why Japan never got the recognition that they deserved. Glad to have you back on board, lb. I've really missed your insightful intelligent reviews.

DayGloJo

[schwenko]

I cannot keep track of what album people are referring to in this thread.
But I would highly recommend consulting THE definitive Japan site, Paul Rymer's Nightporter site for any tracklistings/versions etc:

http://www.nightporter.co.uk/pages/disc.htm

http://www.nightporter.co.uk/pages/japan_album.htm