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Japan

Rock music

New wave

Glam rock

Beginning life as pouting, fun time glam rockers, the South London lads Japan helped carve out a template for the New Romantic scene and experimented with an eclectic range of sounds and styles that brightened up the post-punk years previously dominated by strident guitars. Thanks to their name (casually picked out of a hat) the band quickly built a large following in the country of Japan, but it wasn't until they adopted a more electronic, synth-driven sound on third album Quiet Life (1979) that Britain took any notice. The glamorous, outsider pop of Gentlemen Take Polaroids (19...