Added: 5 years ago
From: Galgo23
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  • Amazing! The first time I have seen this on YouTube and Im taken back to many years ago when I first heard the tune! Love this sound!!!

  • Er..I just photos of this chick that he had kids with, Ingrid Chavez .she looks quite beautiful..so..forget the fagg line...hahaha.but still he has the most annoying voice and pretentious style. definitely would be tossing the salad in prison me thinks.

  • Sad to hear about Mick Karn's ill health.....such an innovative bass player !

    Hope things are as comfortable as they can be Mick!

  • David Sylvian is amazing, Très chic!

  • what a tune..one of the best of their genre...

  • david sylvian modelled him self on lady diana and in later years meg ryan. what a fairy

  • Definately their best song, the song is just so haunting and enchanting. It sends tingles down my spine everytime I hear it and can't stop myself from singing along at disturbing high volume.

  • awsomee

  • this song is creepy man lol, im not old enough to know the original, but the trance mix is sure a tune

  • So awesome... Here's hoping Mick Karn can pull through and make a full recovery. Thinking of you Mick x

  • Yeah, classic track 4 sure

  • i think this has really stood the test of time....

    nothing quite like it before or after

  • Best use of a SCI Prophet 5 and a marimba in a song ever! Plus I love David Sylvian's voice, not to everyone's taste but certainly to mine.

  • Its kinda confused me at first. LOLOL i thought the video will be about a ghost in Japan.

  • You can go to nightporter.co.uk/pages/bass_a­uction.html to learn about a bass auction with the proceeds going to the Mick Karn Appeal to help this great bassist and his family during his recent time of need fighting cancer.

  • This song is awesome - takes me back to when days were better. No idea what mood1indigo has posted but bet he needs some serious therapy

  • This song is awesome - takes me back to when days were better. No idea what mood1indigo has posted but bet he needs some serious therapy

  • japan is among the best things i keep in my memories back from the 80ties, even better as depeche m. And ghosts is the most spiritual song of that band and is bonded to my memory for ever.

  • mick karn is dying with cancer:( im a bass player and i dont know if i would have been if not for japan....

  • I'd forgotten how good this track was, liked it then & it's still quite good today. The comments below are hilarious though, no need guys, grow up eh!

  • Go to mickkarn.net and see how you can help him fight his bout with cancer!

  • I used to hate this song, but its really grown on me - its so creepy and unusual - love it!!!!

  • I now believe that japoan fans are stuck in a tanget universe of 1980 where their icons, japan, are protected from the evolution of pop music and retain their cool status for ever and a day...seriously, japan fans, you live in la la land and perhaps moving to far far away and socialise with shrek would be best option in life for you lot coz you live in fairytale world.

  • all of ya...shut the f..k up ! and just listen to

    this beautiful song, and remember those ghostly

    80ties, when musik was the religion, and not the

    fight about who was Cool.

    being cool was about musik like this song.

    if u dont feel it...well dont bother answering

  • U2 played at my college in the early 80's ... good PA... otherwise boring ... I would have rather seen Japan. U2 got better later ... the Eno influence no doubt ! Sylvian would later play and sing on tour with Fripp and a version of King Krimson although they may not have called it that.

  • my life they where so gay

  • Doesn't this sound a bit like...No, that's right Japan don't sound like anybody else..and the Bass player - Mick Karn - is still one of my favourite bassists. Musicians amongst you will note that you NEVER see any of his basslines on Tab sites - can't emulate his level of brilliance!!

  • No words, just ghosts in the machine....

  • One of the first singles in which my sister's and my musical tastes converged. A great song!!!

  • one of the most important british band of that era

    JAPAN RULES !!!!

  • I loved this song. When I was eleven. When I feel upset. I play this song. And listen to the music always helps me to think and relex. I am now 41

  • Does anyone know if the fellow with the scarf is Riuichi Sakamoto? The last golden age of music was 1978 to 1985 and everything since then sucks.

  • @pattyo14  no its not riuichi sakamoto he came later when david sylvian went solo

  • @donandlil Erm, the suspiciously Japanese looking chappy playing the synth is non another than RS himself making a guest appearance with the line-up for this performance!

    Peace.

  • Oh wah wah wah... all you pseudo wannabe music purists slamming the Police & U2, change your pad already & calm down!!!! All that tight bra strap hissy fit aside, DAMN this is such a sick song, there's such a beautiful melody to this which seems to compliment the angular notes from the guitars & synths. Unlike anything I've ever heard, awesome.

  • choooooon!

  • brilliant! thanks for this, I havent heard it for years!

  • Nice creative use of synths unlike the predictable, loud, irritating crap in today's charts.

  • @maccagrabme The keyboardist is now a member of Porcupine Tree, which is a fantastic band. Check them out if you haven't.

  • Mood1ndigo your name says it all, MOOOOOODYgrow up mate. Music is in the ear of the beholer. Im sure many ppl think your favourite music is a load of shiite to? think before you type. An Japan WERE incredably influencal an original at the time.

    (my apologies on the spealling lol)

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  • @Mood1ndigo get your facts correct you troll/asrsehole/underclass/ret­ard/socially disadvantaged/pest/scrotum - i enjoy japan music at times and of course believe they were a talented outfit. that said, i dont think they were the best band of the era or anything like that but i would say they would be in the top ten of 80s artists probably. In addition, when enjoying these videos, the comments i read are so ego influennced and outwith factual consideration i am compelled to respond. fuck you.

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  • the man with the most beautiful nose in the world ...the song is not bad either :)

  • i was at the recording of this performance at riverside studios, it was magical!

  • This song is just...man, there isn't anything else like it...awesome song.

  • This is a great track from one of the best art rock bands of the 80's,

    David Sylvian and his band were WAY ahead of their times, along with Wang Chung, while they opening real techno doors, the Police were doing boring white boy watered down reggae and U2 were doing laughable copies of the Doors and singing protest crap no one gave a crap about ! Real Art lingers! If you like Japan, check out Wang Chung 'Points on a Curve' , or their film score to 'To Live and Die in LA' .

  • @videocanone the police and u2 are way more well known though frighteningly enough. That's ok I like japan being a bit of a secret

  • one of the greatest 80's songs

  • in response to gregingram1970's BS comments:

    I was a fan of Mick Karn's work with Japan (esp. Quiet Life,and Gentleman Take Polaroids) and he inspired me to play fretless" - John Taylor

    electric barbarella's single cover

    "Band founder Nick Rhodes:

    -... drawing from the musical, visual and lyrical stylistic elements of Bowie, Ferry, Sylvian and Eno...-

  • Nick Rhodes played Visions of China on MTV

    John Taylor has played their songs when he dejays

    Roger Taylor lists Japan under his favorite albums in Red Carpet Massacre tour book

  • A very atmospheric piece of music. Highly enjoyable.

  • Half of you are speaking some what strangely, this is brillance, I can understand people might get annoyed , but this and Nightporter....maybe these people never had a first Love.

  • Deftones covering this on the itunes version of diamond eyes along with 2 others

  • Great original song,with a great melody!

  • I was doing any punk and new wave around from 77 on and I totally never got these guys.

  • chills- literally goosebumps on top of goosebumps

  • great version, love the extra synth sounds

  • Aaaah! The Old Grey Woolly Vest ☺ not itchy and scratchy, always a comfy fit. It was the best. Give us a *whisper* please Bob.

    Top tune. This still sounds great! ;-j

  • This song foreshadows so much of his solo work, especially the material on "Blemish" - the atmospheric arrangement, the dissonance, the seemingly disembodied vocal lines...great stuff.

  • david played this on his 08 solo tour, his new cd Manafon

  • @Mood1ndigo

    a) who or what is GregIngram?

    b) my comment was not out of context, I'm saying your opinion is of no interest.

  • you have to be in the right mellow melancholic mood for this style of chillout new wave. gary numan has an album called dance that has a similar style. it may be with the bassist from japan if i remember right...

  • Ripped of blatantly by other household 80,s bands,Japan were beyond cool at the time,Thanks to the poster.

  • Mood1ndigo, do you think anyone cares what you think?

  • @barneyjrubble You're an alt of GregIngram, I assume?

    Read the chat transcript before taking comments out of context and making uninformed, stupid comments like this.

  • I really can't be arsed with what everyone else is saying..........beautiful tune............x

  • Amazing 80's song...

  • Met Japan on the Oxford road show in 1981. What happened to them? Quiet life was the main song

  • Thank goodness for the BBC's Ashes to Ashes, or I would never have found this (90's lad) :D

  • Still a pleasure to see again after all these years x

  • Haunting. Just like ghosts...

  • although a little sedated for my tastes, this song is musical genius!

  • bloody shame we don't see anything this interesting in the charts now

  • @canvoodoo Then don't look at the charts... Interesting music is being released constantly.

  • Well, Japan did cobble together the sounds of Eno with a Bowie-tinged melodic sensibility, but they did in a way that was completely original. Nick Karn's slithering baseline on "My New Career" is a great example of this; I can't think of a musical precedent for it. Duran Duran, on the other hand, borrowed heavily from Japan's aesthetic. If you're denying that, you're just a blind fanboy.

  • LOLWUT

  • Fabulous, era-defining track.

  • such an underated song.....atmospheric sounding ....so cool

  • having discovered this pearl only veeeeery late, have to say - so moving & brilliant!!!!! Can't stop listening! Have more of them by now and they are so worth it!

  • 2greg.firstly, japan's 1st two albums were more glam rock and came out some 3 years b4 duran duran's 1st album. secondly ,singles life in tokyo79 and quiet life80 were both released before careless memory81 and planet earth81 which to me sound like total japan rip offs.thirdly- they even stole the japan image.finally , all the bands you quoted are cool but are not a facsimili of other bands- sorry but ,duran duran were at this stage.

  • riot in glasga

  • To see Mr. Sakamoto in this stage playing with them, how lucky I am!

  • A superb song. No pun intended but very haunting! I was pleased to see it referred to in the novel The History of Us, a book set in the early eighties. They must've been great times.

  • Using the generic spiritual world as a canvas while touching the inevitable theam of the man and war with his own demon

  • Hi Greg, is this what it sounds like in your head? when your alone at night quietly rocking backwards and forwards holding your knees and sobbing?

  • gregingram1970 is a psychopath troll, just ignore him. I'm shocked to see he's still up to this. He's been doing it for over a year. Just randomly trolling and trying to start fights under Japan videos. Seriously get a life man and move on with yourself. Maybe get the help you need while you're at it.

  • the singer was a David Sylvan of Japan. They were around in the early 80s but they hit the big time when they changed their record label. Up until then they had a cult following.

  • Many people will relate to this: terrible things that happened to you in the early part of your life, you can spend the rest of your life trying to get over them.

  • when my marrige broke up i discovered this song i rate it the best ok i dont even know who sings it but it is a good recording plus i use to watch old grey whistle test thank you

  • @amandajaynemrs the greatest 80's band ever ;)

  • Wow, i had forgotten how good this was.

  • there's nothing to discover in Duran Duran except they mostly suck, a few good early songs influenced by this band and a few others and a whole career of just flat out awful and embarrassing music. You know things are bad when they think working with Timberlake and hip hop producers is going to save their careers. Even Andy Taylor is smart enough to realize that. They're rich commercial pop whores whereas the members of Japan have done music with meaning and for pure art.

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  • I know all those songs very well, I'm not a casual fan of that band at all. I know them very well and even have many live recordings of them. Nothing you mentioned there is past 1982 though, what about the rest of their career?

    When I said "a few" those are some of the songs I would choose. Considering their whole career, that early stuff is just a few things. I wouldn't even say their third album is any good, it seems to have a huge lack of focus and awful commercial singles like the reflex.

  • Please don't label me as naive. Japan fans aren't naive either. I don't even know anyone who likes this band, there aren't many of us out there. I do anything but limit myself. I wouldn't of wrote the comment had I not believed in it or at least had some idea what I was talking about. I can tell you a few songs that sound like Japan, Planet Earth, Tiger Tiger, Sound of Thunder.

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  • listen to tiger tiger then tin drum the album stuff like canton, clear influence there. listen to planet earth, the synth and beat is the same.

    your favorite bands are all 80s associated except the beatles. I like the beatles (far from fanatically) but there's so much more out there in the 60s than them. I'm almost sick of them, there's endless amounts of good 60s music. Check out an 80s band called fiat lux, think you might like them.

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  • you asked me to name the songs since you didn't believe there were any and I did. That's all I did and I didn't say anything more to it.

    I'm sure I have heard of anything you could name from the 60s, even bands that record one single, that's what I know.

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  • well I just thought it was odd to have the beatles listed next to 80s bands honestly, nothing more nothing less than that. The rest is all assumptions!

    I know the cryin' shames, been on freakbeat compilations a bunch.

  • I never told you who your favorite band should be. I just recommended one I doubt you heard of. It's not some contest and I never jumped to conclusions. yikes!

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  • @rhodesia789 There's nothing wrong with odd, I'm sure David would agree with that tangent.

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  • I don't want to turn this into some DD discussion. I think they're a crap band past 1983 who lost their original focus.

    Those first 2 albums get loads of credit, whereas Japan get nothing. I think it's quite the other way around. Everyone knows Rio but do they know Quiet Life? Nope. Gentlemen Take Polaroids? Nope. Tin Drum? Nope. Japan gets left out in the cold. It isn't wrong to say they're teenie pop either, they've dabbled in some of that for sure. Every teenage girl did love them right

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  • I'm getting seriously confused by all these comments plus some of them you deleted (?) I can't reply here anymore, way too confusing, send me a private message if you want to discuss this more.

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  • would be happy to discuss this more in detail but don't feel it's right to flood the comments about this, send me a private message if you like.

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  • I definitely think its a commercial single. it's everything that defined what I hated about the 80s. Give me Sound of Thunder, khanada, etc etc over that any day.

    Buddy Holly didn't record really bad music later on so he's remembered for what he did before he died. With DD you have a career of 32 years to look at and consider.

    does Sylvian's solo music appeal to you?

  • ~ So Sweet ~

  • well theres a clear egotist here, can't you enjoy the music "gregingram"! :)

  • @psb20367, you and me both

  • 1982 I was 15 ,used to spend hours in front of the mirror trying to get my hair like that ... yes you've guessed am bald now lol

  • Amazing song. Simple as that

  • applause

  • Beautiful, riuchi is awesome

  • Ryuichi Sakamoto : keybords

  • He started out with them-strange but true.

  • f--- Blender mag, good for cat box liner.

  • wish they wood reform

  • wtf?

  • We all did OGWT back then

    John Peel was very influential..

    And it was my first time to meet David. And he said. Ah,Julian. Wilder.

  • o que tem piada sao as minhas enfluencias, ao fim destes anos todos, venho buscar coisas aos japan! abraço de portugal

  • And Blender Magazine had the nerve to call Japan one of the worsts artists of all time.

  • Such a great band and a beautiful beautiful song.

  • Probably the song 'Wild is the Wind' by Bowie influenced Midge.

  • wonder if the line wilder than the wind influenced Midge Ure

  • Never realized the obvious influence of Roxy Music on them. I had that same haircut back in the day...bald as twat now Lol

  • un grande genio

  • Wow, does he have new solo stuff out? Haven't listened to him since the 80's. Awesome vocals!!! Thanks for posting!

  • All I know was that I was 13/14 when this came out and 2 albums later (yes, it was VERY expensive! $9.99 an album!) I thought, man, between him and Roxy, there is some wierd plane of existence I'm missing from life....

    And sure enough....

  • I used to sit and listen to this band late 70!s early 80!s they were great ,or was it just the drink and dugs,or being 19/ 20 ish.just to let you know my favorite bands of the time and now! ac/dc,thin lizzy ,quo,sex pistols,dammed,t,rex,kate bush,furs,rush,girl,everything and anything,its all good!?

  • it mey be the druds?lol

  • @despoolkop - yeah, definitely the druds - just say ni !

  • Labour's manifesto should have read....

    Prophet 5 Prophet 5 Prophet 5

  • No-one who says "Make the IQ test" has an IQ above 100, no-one, just no-one.

  • David Sylvian was better than Matteo Branciamore.

  • ryuichi sakamoto owes david sylvian big time.

  • Why did they quit after their biggest hit? Doesn't make sense to me. I would've thought that that alone would make a band realise that they should continue?

  • maybe its because they were real musicians who really didnt care about fame...

  • Great song.

  • just out of curiosity whats mr sylvian doing now????

  • his own solo project

  • New solo album "manafon" out now, but if you've not kept up - I'd recommend the Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow as his best recent work. Manafon is an acquired taste...

  • Why have this band been wiped from music history - watched the BBC docu on Synth Britania not a fucking mention .... tragic.Thiey were total class and very original.

  • if you watched synth britannia at the bbc it showed their performance of Ghosts (discovering it for the first time) and Quiet Life is on Ministry of Sound - Anthems Electronic 80s...

  • 80s electronica at its best.

    Love it :)

  • Excellent song! Japan were one of the best groups ever!

  • A Musical Poet....His music never ages....Superb!!