Gentlemen Take Polaroids


Gentlemen Take Polaroids is the fourth studio album by the English band Japan, released on 24 October 1980 by Virgin Records.
The album was preceded by the release of the title track as a single, which peaked at number 60 in the UK Singles Chart. The album was moderately successful, peaking at number 51.

Background

Gentlemen Take Polaroids was the band's first album for the Virgin Records label, after leaving Hansa-Ariola who had released their first three albums. It continued in the vein of their previous album Quiet Life, drawing on its elegant Euro-disco stylings coupled with more ambitious arrangements. This was the last Japan album to feature guitarist Rob Dean, who left the band in spring 1981.
Lyrically the songs were also a continuation of themes on the previous album, such as travel and escape to foreign climas in the song "Swing", while the lyrics of "Nightporter" introduced a more introspective nature of Sylvian's songwriting. The last track "Taking Islands in Africa", which lifted it's title from a line in "Swing", was a collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto, who was given a song writing credit for the song.

Release

The album was preceded by the release of the title track as a single in October 1980, which peaked at number 60 in the UK Singles Chart, the group's first single to chart.
The album itself was moderately successful in the UK. It peaked at number 51, and was later certified Gold by the BPI in 1986 for 100,000 copies sold.
No further singles were immediately taken from the album, though "Nightporter" was remixed and released as a single in November 1982, just after the band announced that they were breaking up. It peaked at number 29 in the UK Singles Chart, though both the edited 7" version and the full-length 12" remix remain unreleased on CD to this day.
The album was reissued in 2003, with slightly different cover art and three bonus tracks; the instrumentals "The Width of a Room" and "The Experience of Swimming", composed by Richard Barbieri. Both tracks were originally b-sides to the "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" double 7" single, but were also used on later singles. The third bonus track was "Taking Islands In Africa", a Steve Nye remixed version from 1981 originally released as b-side on the "Visions Of China" 7" single.
On August 24, 2018 two new half speed mastered vinyl pressings were released; a single 33rpm version and a deluxe double 45rpm version. Both mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. For the first time all lyrics were printed inside the gatefold of the deluxe version and the cover art had cropped the band name and title with the original photograph now covering the whole surface.

Reception

Gentlemen Take Polaroids has been well received by some critics. Writing in Smash Hits magazine in November 1980, Steve Taylor gave the album 8/10 and wrote: "If Brian Eno, rather than Bryan Ferry, had rerouted the original direction of Roxy Music, this might well have been the result..."
However, other contemporary critics were unimpressed. NME's Simon Du Noyer and Melody Maker's Patrick Humphries both saw Japan as Roxy Music imitators. The former reviewer wrote "if only Japan's music was as eloquent as it's elegant... they lavish tender loving care on the surface sound – a beautifully polished, empty shell of a sound." Humphries expressed a similar opinion: "There's someting infinitely unsatisfying about this album. From the false image of the band to the hollow songs they perform."
In his retrospective review, Ned Raggett of AllMusic called it "unquestionably the album in which Japan truly found its own unique voice and aesthetic approach." The Quietus wrote that the album "took the sound of Quiet Life and refined it into a series of oblique, almost cinematic avant-pop creations that exquisitely surround the frontman’s woozy post-Bryan Ferry croon in layers of pop textures that sounded like little else by Japan’s contemporaries.

Track listing

† The track "Burning Bridges" was put on the album as a last-minute replacement for a track titled "Some Kind of Fool", with quite a lot of UK and German pressings of the album listing the latter song on the inner sleeve and on the track listings. "Some Kind of Fool" was also going to be released as a single in 1982, but was replaced by "Nightporter". An overdubbed version with new lyrics was released on Sylvian's solo album Everything and Nothing in 2000, but the original Japan version has never been released.

Singles

YearSongUK ChartAdditional information
1980"Gentlemen Take Polaroids"60released as a double single pack: "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" /"The Experience of Swimming" and "The Width Of A Room"/"Burning Bridges"
1982"Nightporter"29released edited and remixed with "Ain't That Peculiar" on the 7" single and "Methods of Dance" on the 12" single

Personnel

; Japan
; Additional personnel
; Technical