Trivia / Japan

• Better Export for You:
  • The US CD release of Gentlemen Take Polaroids compensates for its Late Export for You status (coming out 14 years after the original UK LP) by adding "The Experience of Swimming" and "The Width of a Room", previously the B-side and C-side to the double-7" release of the Title Track, as bonus tracks. The songs would later be included as bonus tracks on the 2003 remaster across regions.
  • Most CD releases of the Greatest Hits Album Exorcising Ghosts cut out five tracks in order to fit the compilation on a single disc. Japanese reissues on the format in the '90s, however, feature the full 16-song tracklist across two discs.
• Black Sheep Hit: "Ghosts" was the band's first single to reach the UK top ten and remains their biggest hit to this day. Despite that, it's a radical departure from the rest of their output — whereas Japan's usual material was New Romantic fare (with their earliest stuff being Glam Rock), "Ghosts" is a slow, atmospheric dirge with no instruments apart from sparse synths and a marimba. Frontman David Sylvian, however, would regard this as a blessing for him, as the song laid the groundwork for the avant pop of his solo career.
• Breakup Breakout: David Sylvian, who became an iconic art pop musician of The '80s, and Richard Barbieri, who garnered a sizable amount of fame in the prog and metal scenes as the keyboardist for Porcupine Tree.
• Bury Your Art:
  • According to Mick Karn in a 1996 interview, the band were "really ashamed" of, and "would absolutely hate anyone to hear", their early demos for the German Hansa record label (at the time "basically a disco-oriented label with Boney M. and people like that"), which Karn describes as the result of "spend[ing] quite a long time in the studio to convince [the label] that we were not a disco band—that we weren't very good at disco music". The demos have never been released as a result.
  • "Some Kind of Fool" was recorded and intended for release on Gentlemen Take Polaroids, only to be abruptly replaced with "Burning Bridges" at the last minute due to David Sylvian believing that it wasn't fit for release. Sylvian eventually re-recorded the vocal part and released the results on his 2000 rarities collection Everything and Nothing, but the original version remains unreleased, with Sylvian personally vetoing every attempt to get it out to the public.
• Channel Hop: The band were originally signed to Hansa Records, a German disco label. However, all three albums that they put out on the label were commercial flops, resulting in Hansa dropping them in 1980; the band would subsequently sign with Virgin Records and stay there all the way up to their reunion as Rain Tree Crow. Virgin would inherit the US rights to the band's first three albums, reissuing them under the Caroline Records imprint, while Hansa would maintain ownership in the rest of the world until their absorption by Sony Music, who are now responsible for handling reissues under the BMG imprint.
• Cut Song:
  • "European Son" was at one point the title track of the album that would become Quiet Life, though it was later dropped entirely. "A Foreign Place" was intended for Quiet Life, though cut from the LP at a relatively late stage. The two were later B-sides, with "European Son" getting a remixed single release in 1981.
  • "Some Kind Of Fool" was, rather infamously, dropped from Gentlemen Take Polaroids at such a late stage that the original UK sleeves were printed with it still listed (a sticker indicated its replacement, "Burning Bridges"). Sylvian felt that the track wasn't quite finished due to having to record the LP in less than a year. The group toyed with reworking it as a final single in 1982, though this ultimately went to a remix of the two year old "Nightporter". Finally in 2000, "Some Kind Of Fool" was included on Sylvian's rarities compilation Everything and Nothing with a re-recorded vocal track, though the original has never been released, with Sylvian personally vetoing each attempt despite fan demands.
• Late Export for You: The band's later and most popular albums were only released in the U.S. in 1994, after Sylvian established a cult following in the country with his solo career.
• No Export for You: The band seemed to give up on America after the failure of Obscure Alternatives. Their later albums wouldn't even be released there until 1994 and the band stopped touring America as well. Japan's breakup coincided with another new wave band full of pretty boys whose keyboardist looked a lot like David Sylvian becoming popular in the U.S.
• Out of Order: At the height of the band's popularity with Tin Drum, their previous label Hansa released several late 70s songs as singles in order to promote their compilation Assemblage. As the group couldn't stop them coming out, they helped commission special remixes and cover art. In the strangest instance Japan themselves proceeded to release the two year old "Nightporter" as their final official single in 1982, whilst Hansa followed with a release of 1979's "All Tomorrow's Parties" in 1983. This led to a lot of the newer fans thinking Japan was a new band who were putting out all these great non-album singles. One notable thing is that Steve Nye, who co-produced Tin Drum and was responsible for many of the remixes, went on to be David Sylvian's producer for the rest of the '80s.
• The Pete Best: Rob Dean to a degree. Even though he's on their first four albums, he left before their commercial breakthrough with Tin Drum due to creative differences with David Sylvian. On studio albums, Sylvian had always played some of the guitar parts, so he simply took over all of them (although, the band was becoming far less guitar-oriented anyway). On tour, Dean was first replaced by David Rhodes, but more famously by Masami Tsuchiya, whose time with the band is immortalised on the band's popular Concert Film Oil On Canvas. Dean didn't do too badly for himself, however, he later worked with Gary Numan and Sinead O'Connor, and moved to Costa Rica where he became an expert on exotic birds. He wasn't invited to the Rain Tree Crow reunion, but has stated that he didn't particularly want to either.
• Remade for the Export:
  • The Australian release of Adolescent Sex has a different cover and is self-titled.
  • The US release of Obscure Alternatives features "Sometimes I Feel So Low" as track 1 due to it being their single at the time, and also features a pink, rather than blue logo. The pink logo was reused on the remasters.
  • Assemblage itself is essentially an expanded European version of the Canadian Special Edition EP (a very popular import released the previous year) with a few band-chosen tracks added from each of the three LPs released on Hansa. It did contain one unreleased track; the planned 1979 single mix of "All Tomorrow's Parties" which did not get released (it was eventually remixed as the compilation's last single in 1983).
  • Whilst the UK release of Assemblage is a best of compilation, the Japanese had a successful Singles EP earlier that year so it wasn't released there. In 1983, Hansa released a Japanese version of Assemblage with a totally different tracklist of 12" mixes and live tracks, as well as the album versions of "Quiet Life" and "Fall In Love With Me" as filler. The UK Special Edition cassette has the Japanese tracklisting on a bonus tape.

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