"Turning Japanese" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by the Vapors | ||||
from the album New Clear Days | ||||
B-side | "Talk Talk" (USA/Canada) "Here Comes the Judge" (live) (international) | |||
Released | January 1980 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length |
| |||
Label | United Artists Records | |||
Songwriter(s) | David Fenton | |||
Producer(s) | Vic Coppersmith-Heaven | |||
The Vapors singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
Audio sample | ||||
"Turning Japanese" is a song by English band the Vapors, from their 1980 album New Clear Days . It was an international hit, becoming the band's most well-known song. The song prominently features the Oriental riff played on guitar.
According to songwriter David Fenton, "Turning Japanese is all the clichés about angst and youth and turning into something you didn't expect." [2] Fenton intended the song to be a love song, with the character of the song "pining over a photograph of his ex-girlfriend" in his bedroom, drawing from Fenton's own experience of being rejected. Fenton wrote the song in his flat, but had problems writing the chorus. He said that the chorus then came to him suddenly when he woke up at 4am with the line "Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese" in his head, and he used it even though the words and the song title did not "really mean much". [3]
The song was produced by Vic Coppersmith-Heaven, who had previously rejected a request to produce for the band after listening to demos sent to him by the band's managers John Weller (father of Paul Weller) and Bruce Foxton. The band's unsuccessful first single "Prisoners" was therefore produced by someone else. He later had another listen to the demos and agreed to produce "Turning Japanese" for them. Coppersmith-Heaven proposed several changes to the arrangement of the song, so the finished recording has a different arrangement from the demo. He recorded the Vapors live to capture the energy of the band, before stripping it down to just the drums, and then overdubbed the song. According to Fenton, the drummer did not like the song, and "just went "Boom! Splat!"" in the recording, but the band thought it sounded good and kept it. [3]
The band suspected they would score a hit with "Turning Japanese", even delaying its release in order to make it their second single, hoping to avoid becoming "one-hit wonders". Nonetheless, they never matched the single's success. [4] In Australia, it spent two weeks at No. 1 during June 1980, [5] and, coincidentally, the song was also a minor hit in Japan. [2]
The music video was directed by Russell Mulcahy. [6]
The American ska punk band, Skankin' Pickle, covered the song on their 1994 album Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle. [7]
A cover of the song was also featured on America singer-songwriter Liz Phair's 1995 EP Juvenilia.
The song was featured on the soundtrack of the 1997 movie Beverly Hills Ninja covered by the band The Hazies. [8]
Kirsten Dunst recorded a cover, with an accompanying video filmed and directed by McG and produced by Takashi Murakami in Tokyo in August 2009. [9]
On the Canadian sketch comedy series Second City Television , Rick Moranis performed a lounge-style version of the song as the character Tom Monroe. [10]
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
Australia (ARIA) [23] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
"Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley in 1979. It was recorded concurrently by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club for their album English Garden and by British new wave/synth-pop group the Buggles, which consisted of Horn and Downes.
The Vapors are an English new wave and power pop band that initially existed between 1978 and 1981. They had a hit with the song "Turning Japanese", which reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1980 and No. 36 in the US Billboard Hot 100.
"Take My Breath Away" is a song written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock for the 1986 film Top Gun, performed by American new wave band Berlin. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1986.
"Funkytown" is a song by American disco-funk group Lipps Inc., released by Casablanca Records in March 1980. It was written and produced by Steven Greenberg and released as the second single from the group's debut studio album, Mouth to Mouth (1979).
New Clear Days is the 1980 debut album by the British rock group The Vapors. It spent six weeks in the UK album charts, reaching a highest position of No. 44 in June 1980. It contains their best-known song, "Turning Japanese", which reached No. 3 in the UK chart in February 1980 and was also a worldwide success. A remix of "News at Ten", went to No. 44 in July of that year. A third single, a re-recording of "Waiting for the Weekend" that included a horn section, failed to chart.
"In the Summertime" is the debut single by British rock band Mungo Jerry, released in 1970. It reached number one in charts around the world, including seven weeks on the UK Singles Chart, two weeks on one of the Canadian charts, and number three on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the US. It became one of the best-selling singles of all-time, eventually selling 30 million copies. Written and composed by the band's lead singer, Ray Dorset, while working in a lab for Timex, the lyrics of the song celebrate the carefree days of summer. The track was included on the second album by the band, Electronically Tested, issued in March 1971.
"Amanda" is a power ballad by American rock band Boston written by Tom Scholz. The song was released as the first single from the band's third album, Third Stage, in 1986, six years after it was recorded.
"Upside Down" is a song written and produced by Chic members Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. It was recorded by American singer Diana Ross and issued on June 18, 1980 from Motown as the lead single from her eleventh studio album, Diana (1980). The song hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on September 6, 1980 and stayed there for four weeks. It also hit number one on the Billboard Disco and Soul charts. The single was released a full four weeks after the album was released.
"I Second That Emotion" is a 1967 song written by Smokey Robinson and Al Cleveland. First charting as a hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the Tamla/Motown label in 1967, "I Second That Emotion" was later a hit single for the group duet Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations, also on the Motown label.
"The Loco-Motion" is a 1962 pop song written by American songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. "The Loco-Motion" was originally written for R&B singer Dee Dee Sharp, but Sharp turned the song down.
"Celebration" is a 1980 song by American band Kool & the Gang. Released as the first single from their twelfth album, Celebrate! (1980), it was the band's first and only single to reach No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
"It's Only Make Believe" is a song written by drummer Jack Nance and Mississippi-born singer Conway Twitty, while they were touring across Ontario, Canada in 1958. Twitty was a relatively unknown rock n' roll singer at the time, and this song was his first hit, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard chart in November 1958 for two weeks.
"Babe" is a song by the American rock band Styx. It was the lead single from the band's 1979 triple-platinum album Cornerstone. The song was Styx's first, and only, US number-one single, spending two weeks at No. 1 in December 1979, serving as the penultimate number-one single of the 1970s. "Babe" also went to No. 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It additionally held the number-one spot for six weeks on the Canadian RPM national singles chart, charting in December 1979 and becoming the opening chart-topper of the 1980s. It was also the band's only UK Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 6. It also reached No. 1 in South Africa.
"Dreamer" is a hit single from British band Supertramp's 1974 album Crime of the Century. It peaked at number 13 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1975. In 1980, it appeared on the band's live album Paris. This live version was also released as a single and hit number 15 on the US charts, number 36 in the Dutch Top 40, and number one on the Canadian Singles Chart. When "Dreamer" had been released in 1974, its B-side "Bloody Well Right" was more popular in North America leading it to chart instead, at No. 35 in the US and No. 49 in Canada, with "Dreamer" only charting in Canada, that being at No. 75. "Dreamer" also appeared on Roger Hodgson's album, Classics Live, recorded on tour in 2010.
"Look Away" is a 1988 power ballad by American rock band Chicago. Written by Diane Warren, produced by Ron Nevison, and with Bill Champlin on lead vocals, it is the second single from the band's album Chicago 19. "Look Away" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in December 1988, becoming the group's third and final number one hit, following "If You Leave Me Now" (1976) and "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" (1982). "Look Away" is Chicago's seventh song to have peaked at No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and it was also the No. 1 song on the 1989 year-end Billboard Hot 100 chart, even though it never held the No. 1 spot at all in 1989. This is because Billboard's year-end chart covers the charts as far back as late November of the previous year.
"Woman in Love" is a song performed by Barbra Streisand and taken from her 1980 album Guilty. The song was written by Barry and Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees, who received the 1980 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. It is her fourth of four Platinum records, and is considered her greatest international hit.
"Montego Bay" is a song co-written and performed by Bobby Bloom about the city in Jamaica of the same name. The song was a top ten hit for Bloom in the Fall of 1970 on both sides of the Atlantic. It reached No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 5 on the Canadian RPM 100 Singles Chart, No. 7 on the Australian Go-Set Singles Chart and No. 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The song was co-written and produced by Jeff Barry. In the master tape of the song, Bloom breaks into a chorus of "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" at the end of the recording. The song features a whistler, as well as Jamaican instruments in a calypso style.
"I'm Your Boogie Man" is a song written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch, and performed by Casey's band KC and the Sunshine Band, from their fourth album Part 3 (1976).
"Just One Look" is a song co-written by American R&B singers Doris Troy and Gregory Carroll. The recording by Doris Troy was a hit in 1963. The Hollies, Anne Murray, Linda Ronstadt and Iain Matthews each achieved great success with the song. There have also been many other versions.
Vic Coppersmith-Heaven is an English sound engineer and record producer, best known for his production work with the Jam.