ADOLESCENT SEX

"Japan". On prog archives.

When you see how little reviews this band collected on this site, you can easily come to the conclusion about their "progressiveness" which is close to none of course.

Due to my old age, I was rather involved in the post punk / new wave or even "new romantic" movement when it raised. Still, "Japan" has never been a favourite of mine. IMO, a band as Ultravox! was waaaaaaay more creative than this one.

This album was absolutely not successful commercially (except in The Netherlands and in .Japan of course). To have them compared to the greatest like "Roxy" or "Bowie" is just exaggerated. They just come excessively lower in my musical scale (even if some of their work has the mark of the late "Roxy").

While I was enchanted with bands like "Talking Heads", "Television", "Magazine", "Ultravox!", "Patti Smith" etc. I was not enthusiastic at all about "Japan". And seeing them on PA was really a MAJOR surprise.

If ever you are willing to experience an awful disco beat song, you are welcome to discover "Suburban Love". Pretty awful.

This album has very little to do with prog music. In those days (the late seventies), there were a bunch of great bands playing some creative music waaaaaaaaaays better than this poor offering. But creative doesn't mean prog (see bands mentioned above).

I just don't like this album. Weak. All the way through. One of the very few good songs is "Communist China" (but don't expect any masterpiece of course).

One little star.

Well what a great disappointment Japan´s debut album Adolescent Sex has been for me. I have listened to some of David Sylvian´s solo work which I think is really great, and of course I had to go to the source to see where it all came from, but this doesn´t sound much like the David Sylvian I know.

The music on Adolescent Sex is early new wave but with a lot of David Bowie and Roxy Music influences. The songs are not vey exciting for a prog rock fan like me. There are almost no surprises in the song structures and the instrumental parts are generally not something special. The few times something sound prog like it´s when Richard Barbieri ( Porcupine Tree) plays some nice keyboards. Especially the first song Transmission and the song Performance have pretty great keyboard parts. In fact when I heard Transmission I was really looking forward to listening to the rest of the album, as that song is really excellent. Had the rest of the album been like this, it would have been a 4 star album.

The sound quality is very good and I like the eighties sounds that Japan uses. The sound kind of remind me of UK, but the music doesn´t.

I can´t give more than 2 stars for this album even though there are a few great parts here and there. Overall it´s not my taste though.