''Obscure Alternatives'' is the second studio album by English new wave band

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, released in October 1978 by record label Hansa.

Background

Japan's first album, ''

Adolescent Sex ''Adolescent Sex'' is the debut album by the English band Japan, released in April 1978 by record label Hansa. To avoid controversy over the title, the album was renamed simply as ''Japan'' in some countries. Content According to AllMusic, ' ...

'', had been unsuccessful on the British charts, and their record company required another album, this time aimed at the lucrative US and European markets where rock was dominating the airwaves. Still working with Ray Singer as producer, singer and songwriter

David Sylvian David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...

in particular found it difficult to take a back seat and began to demand more control over the eventual presentation of the material.

Content

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'' wrote that the album "adds more keyboards but still relies on Rob Dean's buzzing guitars and David Sylvian's sneery vocals for its sound". Certain tracks contain elements of

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

and

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

's Amy Hanson described "Automatic Gun" as "a spit-shined

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

shocker backed by bright pop guitar". The title track is described as "wonderfully atmospheric and slightly menacing", while "Love Is Infectious" "put the band completely into discordant

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

art house-dom". "....Rhodesia", Hanson writes, "brought the funk back and infused it with a

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

essence. The final track, "The Tenant", a piano based instrumental, was the first notable shift towards the direction their later material would take. "The Tenant" also marks bassist

Mick Karn Andonis Michaelides (Greek: Αντώνης Μιχαηλίδης; 24 July 1958 – 4 January 2011), better known as Mick Karn, was an English-Cypriot musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the bassist for the art rock/ new wave band Japan. H ...

's recording debut on saxophone.

Release

''Obscure Alternatives'' was released in October 1978, only seven months after ''Adolescent Sex''. As with the first album, ''Obscure Alternatives'' was commercially unsuccessful in the UK, but garnered moderate success in Japan, where it peaked just outside the Top 20. The tracks "Deviation" and "Sometimes I Feel So Low" were released as singles in certain countries, the latter as a double A-side with a re-recorded version of "Adolescent Sex" (the title track of their first album, re-recorded during the sessions for this album). It became Japan's first European hit single, and the re-recorded version of "Adolescent Sex" is featured on the 1981 compilation album '' Assemblage''. Both tracks were mixed together to form "I Can't Wait", which was club hit for L'il Devious in 2003. The album was remastered and re-released in 2004, and included a video for "Sometimes I Feel So Low".

Reception

''Trouser Press''' review was unfavourable, writing: "The songs are fairly unmelodic, the production nondescript. With a quick listen, you might mistake this for a junior-league

Stones In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's o ...

imitation." AllMusic was more positive, writing retrospectively: "Although the set isn't quite up to par with its predecessor, ''Obscure Alternatives'' is still a challenging listen." Sylvian has gone on record saying that ''Obscure Alternatives'' would have been a better debut album than ''Adolescent Sex'' was.

Track listing

Personnel

; Japan *

–

lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, mixing *

Rob Dean Rob Dean (born 23 April 1955) is a British musician turned professional illustrator, who rose to prominence playing lead guitar as a member of the British new wave band Japan from 1975 to 1981. Biography He is from the Clapton district of ...

– guitar,

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

, mixing *

Richard Barbieri Richard Barbieri (born 30 November 1957) is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan (and their brief 1989–1991 reincarnation as Rain Tree Crow), more recently he is known as the keyboard ...

–

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

, mixing *

– bass, backing vocals,

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

, mixing *

Steve Jansen ''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen Notable people with the name include: steve jops * Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people * Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people * Steve ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, backing vocals,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, mixing ; Additional personnel * Ray Singer –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, mixing *

Chris Tsangarides Christopher Andrew Tsangarides (17 August 1956 – 6 January 2018) was a British Grammy-nominated record producer, sound engineer, and mixer of Greek Cypriot origin. He was best known for his work with many heavy metal artists, including G ...

–

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

Background

Content

Release

Reception

Track listing

Personnel

Charts

References

External links