Japan
Japan formed in the London suburb of Catford in 1974 around school friends David Sylvian, Steve Jansen, and Mick Karn, adding keyboardist Richard Barbieri and guitarist Rob Dean the following year. Their earliest records, 'Adolescent Sex' and 'Obscure Alternatives,' cast them as an androgynous glam-rock outfit indebted to Bowie, T. Rex, and the New York Dolls — Sylvian even borrowed his stage surname from Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain. By 1979's 'Quiet Life' they had shed the glitter for something colder and more European: icy synthesizers, Karn's fretless bass, and Sylvian's downturned croon, refined further on 'Gentlemen Take Polaroids' and the skeletal hit 'Ghosts.' They disbanded in 1982 at their commercial peak, having quietly rewritten the New Romantic rulebook other bands cashed in on.
As a teenage fan of the New York Dolls, David Sylvian took his stage surname from guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, and Japan's earliest incarnation pursued the same androgynous, sexually provocative glam image over swaggering, guitar-forward rock — a debt Wikipedia's account of the band states directly, grouping Japan's first sound 'in the mould of David Bowie, T. Rex, and the New York Dolls.'
listen forCompare 'Personality Crisis' with 'Adolescent Sex' — both strut over a scrappy, funk-inflected glam-rock riff with a sneering, theatrical vocal on top, more interested in image and swagger than polish.
Sylvian has named Roxy Music among the artists he listened to growing up as 'lasting influences,' and as Japan matured past their glam debut it was Roxy's arty sophistication — detached, faintly ironic vocals, synthesizer textures used for atmosphere rather than hooks — that guided the shift documented on 'Quiet Life,' which Wikipedia describes as drawing 'initially on the art rock stylings of Roxy Music.'
listen forPlay 'Virginia Plain' next to 'Quiet Life' — both pair a cool, arch vocal delivery with synthesizer color used as texture, art-rock cleverness dressed in a pop single's clothes.
Sylvian's account of his own teenage listening — glam artists Marc Bolan, Bowie, and Roxy Music — lines up with Wikipedia's description of early Japan as 'an alternative glam rock outfit in the mould of David Bowie, T. Rex, and the New York Dolls,' with T. Rex's chugging, boogie-based riffing audible in the band's pre-electronic guitar sound.
listen forCompare 'Get It On (Bang a Gong)' with 'The Unconventional' — both ride a thick, repetitive glam-boogie guitar riff under a preening, come-on vocal, rock and roll swagger played completely straight-faced.