Obscure Alternatives , overlooked ?

[digimarsh]

Many years ago when i 1st aquired this album ,i had mixed feelings about it.
Over the years i have come to love it's power,atmosphere and contradiction.
It never seems to command much attention,so do we like it?

[anortherncod]

Yes, I concur. I'm sure I've said this before, but my enjoyment of OA was heightened when the remaster came out with the Live In Tokyo EP tracks tacked onto the end - because that EP contained the first Japan songs I ever heard

[Hawk]

Have just listened to the album in its entirety for the first time and I LOVED it - in fact, although I own a few of the tracks already from amazon downloads, I think I am going to buy the whole album on CD. It feels a brimming collection of songs. I love all of them for different reasons, but mostly for a mood when I want to rock out but also do some interesting artwork in the background with my left hand... Sort of like reckless painting. Catchy and inspiring. Suburban Berlin puts me into an environment only Studio Ghibli could dream of..... Love is Infectious is so......modern? It's the kind of thing I'd usually hate....but I love it.....the lyrics, the guitar, the drums, those weird vocal things David does...... haha and I love it when he says "oh well."

Funny, as I was scanning through all the early Japan tracks last year...I must have missed this one....maybe the intros aren't so enticing and I skipped past them too early....the songs seem to reach their peak for me after the 1 minute mark....but yes DEFINITELY overlooked!

Now I'm in a really rare positive frame of mind - coloured ribbons streaming over milk lines in the dark - happy happy greasy hair happy me. I feel like the artsy teenager I never was...

[Cheery Cherry]

Yes, I do like it. I can't listen to it all the time like I used to when I heard it initially back in the early '80s. I must be getting old If I'm in the mood to think about my lonely teenage years, I listen to OA and it often arouses various emotions within me, so I listen to it when alone. Actually, I listen to all Japan/Sylvian CDs alone...no one else seems to understand.

[inkinthewell]

no one else seems to understand.

That's true. And I always wonder why. I mean, if you lend these guys your ears just for a minute, there's loads to tickle them. But whenever I've played Japan to someone, they never got it!
Some people have blind ears.

[Tim91]

no one else seems to understand.

That's true. And I always wonder why. I mean, if you lend these guys your ears just for a minute, there's loads to tickle them. But whenever I've played Japan to someone, they never got it!
Some people have blind ears.

that's why I listen to Japan/David Sylvian by myself
my friends just don't seem capable of enjoying the beautiful complexity of it
and ahaha don't get me started about when I played David Sylvian solo stuff to one of my friends
this music is for my own enjoyment

[digimarsh]

I am not a big fan of the first album myself (its ok), whilst its true the band "distanced" themselves from the initial two albums, i do feel OA gave us the 1st glimpses of the way the band wanted to go.The tenant of course along with tracks like Suburban Berlin and the title track have a type of atmosphere to them which was to surface in time.I agree about the live versions ,definatley , and i was going to say to hawk ,get the remastered ,expanded version if you decide to invest.