0356. Japan
Quiet Life

Okay, so now we know where Duran Duran got their sound from.
From the very get-go I like it a lot. The title- (as well as first-) track gets me a bit hooked and the second, Fall In love With Me, reels me in to let the third, Despair kill me with a surprise as it's an (almost wholly) instrumental track based on a quite simple piano-melody, but made very dark by its slow pace and synth-orchestration (even with the saxophone).
And so it continues through the whole album. I don't even realize that All Tomorrow's Parties is the Velvet Underground-track as it blends in so well and the ending (also nearly) instrumental The Other Side Of Life puts the last black streak on the canvas.
Exquisite (even though the voice seem to falter at times).

The new wave/ new romantic that Japan switched to for Quiet Life (they were apparently playing glam before) is like a blueprint for a lot of the songs by Simon Le Bon and friends would push out a couple of years later. But it wouldn't be for long, cause they split just three years later and I guess that's the difference between selling 100 000 like Japan and selling 100 000 000 like Duran Duran.