JAPAN - Adolescent Sex

Japan formed in the early ’70s when David Sylvian, his brother Steve Jansen, and three friends, all besotted by pop and glam, gathered whatever instruments they could afford and learned to write songs by copying their favorite T. Rex, Lou Reed, and Motown tunes. The sound that the band developed feels startling compared to where it began. Japan’s first two albums, Adolescent Sex and Obscure Alternatives (both released in 1978), were, by and large, outliers within the group’s discography. The quintet were still attempting to reach the creative – and hopefully commercial – heights of Be-Bop Deluxe and Roxy Music. The title track to Adolescent Sex is deliciously snotty disco rock leavened by keyboardist Richard Barbieri’s glassy synth tones, and the group slashes through, of all things, a cover of “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” a song written for the musical Funny Girl, with sharpened claws.