Japan

Beginning life as pouting, fun time glam rockers, the South London lads Japan helped carve out a template for the New Romantic scene and experimented with an eclectic range of sounds and styles that brightened up the post-punk years previously dominated by strident guitars. Thanks to their name (casually picked out of a hat) the band quickly built a large following in the country of Japan, but it wasn't until they adopted a more electronic, synth-driven sound on third album Quiet Life (1979) that Britain took any notice. The glamorous, outsider pop of Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) proved a big inspiration to the likes of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet and the Japan used traditional Oriental instruments on the successful Tin Drum album (1981); which produced the UK Number 5 hit single "Ghosts". They split in 1982 after playing six sell-out nights at Hammersmith Odeon, with front man David Sylvian continuing as a solo artist, but reformed as Rain Tree Crow for the 1991, avant-garde, improvisational album of the same name.

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