Music Arcades: Japan: Tin Drum

It's a long, long time since I played this. The memories it holds are all of 1981/82. Here are some of them.

Tommy Vance championing Japan on his radio programmes. Initially I guess they caught his attention when they were trying to emulate the New York Dolls, but he stayed true to them when they headed off towards manicured New Romanticism, even though he knew much of his core audience would hate this stuff.
And similarly, those school friends of mine who had listened indulgently, and ultimately become fans, when I played them Rush, or Tangerine Dream — they said, "No, David, this is a step too far." My argument was that, if we can listen to the new King Crimson, then it's only a small step from there to Tin Drum. The weakness in this argument is that I don't think they much cared for the new King Crimson, either, even if Bill Bruford was an Old Boy. The strength in the argument is that Japan's Sons of Pioneers is woven from the same fabric as Crimso's Sheltering Sky — and Sylvian and Fripp later became mates.
Thinking how avant-garde Ghosts seemed (I know it's got a very traditional structure underneath) and what an unlikely choice for a single from the album — and even more unlikely as a Top 10 hit. I wonder if the charts still have space for anything as unusual as this.

I like the record, yet at the same time it leaves me cold.