Early Years
The band débuted with the 1978 album Adolescent Sex and followed up with their second album, Obscure Alternatives, the same year. Both albums, produced by Ray Singer, sold well in Japan (where the band's name helped them to gain a devoted cult following) and the Netherlands, where the single "Adolescent Sex" was a Top 30 hit. They also gained some popularity in Canada, however, in their native UK those albums failed to garner public attention and did not chart.
Though influenced by artists such as the New York Dolls, Roxy Music and David Bowie, both albums were widely dismissed by the UK music press as being distinctly outmoded at a time when punk and New Wave bands were in ascendence. The band was managed by Simon Napier-Bell who has also managed The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, London and Wham!.
Read more about this topic: Japan (band), History
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“The great word Evolution had not yet, in 1860, made a new religion of history, but the old religion had preached the same doctrine for a thousand years without finding in the entire history of Rome anything but flat contradiction.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)