Gentlemen Take Polaroids [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Japan

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 24, 2007)
• Original Release Date: September 15, 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Caroline
• ASIN: B000F3T7X8
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,295 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Digitally remastered reissue, in standard jewel case, of 1980 album including one bonus track, 'Taking Islands In Africa' (Steve Nye Remix), Features the tracks 'Gentlemen Take Polaroids', 'My New Career', 'Nightporter', 'Methods Of Dance' and more. 11 tracks. Virgin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting album re-examined, September 6, 2007

By	Steven Guy (Croydon, South Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this album on Lp many years ago when it was first released. I enjoyed it then. Some of the tracks never made a big impression on me, but I generally liked the entire album. GTP is a development from "Quiet Life" and probably represents, for some, Japan's finest album - "Tin Drum", several years later, saw Japan going in quite a different direction.

The good tracks far outweigh the "filler" here and some of the music is sublime - "Swing" and "Taking Islands in Africa" still intrigue me. The use of the Roland Compu-rhythm drum machine with Steve Jansen's drumming is very effective. Jansen is a very fine musician indeed. The synthesizer playing is imaginative and very impressive.

The measure of this album is that much of it still sounds fresh today and it still suggests pathways of music and ideas that may be explored.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars gtp, May 24, 2008

By	Jo day - See all my reviews

Swing and nightporter are shimmering 80's treasures. Like nothing else, swing is an uptempo rain of colours, nightporter a soft-vamp ballad, the only true pierrot-song i've ever heard. Outstanding and very original.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven, but intriguing effort.,, August 9, 2007

By	Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Regarded by many as the best album Japan ever did, "Gentlemen Take Polaroids was no doubt revolutionary, excitng, and quite different from anything Japan had done before. David Sylvian had developed as a songwriter, finally finishing the shedding of the overt glam/David Bowie influence that so heavily dominated the early Japan work, and moving into a dance/synth pop/proto ambient direction. Equally important is the development of Steve Jansen as a drummer who knows when not to play as well as when to play (Jansen today in my assessment is a master of economy in drumming, managing a simple one beat fill that often surprasses what others would do), Richard Barbieri developing an extensive vocabulary, not just as a keyboardist, but as a synthesizer driver, and Mick Karn coalescing his style into a fully mature form. When the material works, it's brilliant, but in general, I find the album a bit inconsistent.

But again, the great cuts are great-- certainly little in Japan or anyone else's catalog compares to "Nightporter". Starting as a piano ballad and eventually building into an orchestral (albeit synth-driven) arrangement, the piece is brilliant and melancholy, with Sylvian's vocal being effecting and powerful. It's really what Japan had been building towards (Japan would in my assessment surprass this on "Tin Drum" with the stunning "Ghosts"). While nothing else on the album is quite this powerful, the unusual "My New Career" (an off-kilter pop song with a bizarre beat and some great bass work from Mick Karn) and hte building "Burning Bridges", which starts as kind of a lifeless synth number but eventually builds to a powerful climax, both take note.

Still, there's enough material that doesn't cut it for me-- several pieces are somewhat dull synth pop/dance pieces, usually filled with irritating samples/synth sounds and far too long ("Gentlemen Take Polaroids", "Methods of Dance", "Taking Islands in Africa"). This remaster, with extraordinarily crisp sound, also adds three bonus tracks-- two b-side instrumentals that really don't contribute much ("The Width of a Room" is decent, but somewhat unnecessary) and a remix of "Taking Islands in Africa".

With it's flaws, 'Polaroids' is an unbalanced album, but it has a number of important and powerful songs on it that make it worth digging up.