New Wave music reviews

I have to agree with the other reviews I just read. The Silencers are a great band with incredible songs. I have to say that I sort of forgot about them for a while, since I got the last CD years ago. But just today, I heard "I can feel it" on the radio (surprise!) and tonight, I will have to listen to their music again. Awesume band!!!

the silencers are an excellent band, as good [or even better] as U2 and i don't understand why they do not get the success they deserve. seeing them playing live is a treat, and i have never been disappointed by any cd they ever released. my all time favorite remains 'dance to the holy man', this album is a jewel. i wish it would be easier to find their cds here in the US.

What can I say? I bought this album when it first came out, and it is still one of my all time greats. My personal favourite tracts are "Cellar of Dreams" and "Life Can be Fatal", however even this does not compare to the live experience. Catch them if you can!

Ian Dury was one of those rarities - with acute vision of his culture and an ability to express it with humane humour. But genius was not enough - he needed a vehicle to carry his poetry to the people. His vehicle was musical collaborator Chaz Jankel - a gifted musician and producer. He managed to translate Dury's left of centre lyrics into infectious rhythms and seductively simple tunes over an eclectic range of musical styles. The two together were magic - separate they descended to the mundane - and Dury - like other genius could be guache to awful when he wasn't being brilliant. This album celebrates much of Dury's best work and just one or two bits of "Craggy on the Waggy".

Ian Dury wrote lyrics that told stories about British life (in particular, Cockney life). He was a songwriting genius, although his insistence on avoiding pretensions and affecting a common touch tended to deprive him of serious recognition as a lyricist. In addition he put together a tight band of good musicians, sometimes funk-flavored, sometimes barely noticeable behind the stories told in Dury's songs. He was a brilliant man who died too soon. This collection of his few British hits includes some B-sides, which are especially memorable and may be unfamiliar to the US audience. There is relatively little overlap between this CD and Dury's various albums; and his later work (which was musically disappointing) is not represented.

Ian sold London. We have all heard of the songs celebrating San Fransico, Los Angeles and Memphis (Mott the Hopple!) but Ian celebrated his home turf and more importantly spurned a generation who did the same. Madness it may be, without him there would not be Madness. Ian celebrated life, regardless of the infirmities it brings - even those that are not deserved. Death where is your Sting ? (no that should be Suggs)

There is not one song on the CD that I do not like. I listen to it every day. Good quality, value for money and a CD must have.

I just saw this album and bought it! This group was far more than just the mega hit True. This whole album sounded good--all 10 songs are very well done pop songs! Even Spandau Ballet rocked on some guitar heavy rockers like Highly Strung and To Cut a Long Story Short, Paint Me Down and Communication. Only When You Leave still sounds fabulous as well as their more famous True in 2004. I'll Fly For You is like the companion to True with its own jazzy meets pop vibe. It sounds pretty too. On some of the uptempo songs, they kind of sound like Culture Club, especially on Only When You Leave. The album is very '80s in its sound and musical landscapes (makes me feel like I'm in South Carolina, Georgia or sunny Florida), but sounds so fresh and never outdated now. This was a group that took it and ran with it creatively with their success in the '80s and I think that they compiled a good compilation in its 42 minute span.

I am not sure how many people know the real history behind the name of the group - apparently there was this war criminal who spent his last days in prison, and eventually went crazy. He would pace the cell endlessly, and that too in a rather strange fashion. The guards jokingly called it "Spadau Ballet", combining the name of the prison and the strange gait of the crazy General. There is nothing to laugh about this album, though. Pure gold, with deep, meaningful lyrics ("True" springs to mind). The others are excellent too, but would take some time to grow on you. Once they do, you'll like them all the same way. Happy listening :-)

There is not one song on the CD that I do not like. I listen to it every day. Good quality, value for money and a CD must have.

I just saw this album and bought it! This group was far more than just the mega hit True. This whole album sounded good--all 10 songs are very well done pop songs! Even Spandau Ballet rocked on some guitar heavy rockers like Highly Strung and To Cut a Long Story Short, Paint Me Down and Communication. Only When You Leave still sounds fabulous as well as their more famous True in 2004. I'll Fly For You is like the companion to True with its own jazzy meets pop vibe. It sounds pretty too. On some of the uptempo songs, they kind of sound like Culture Club, especially on Only When You Leave. The album is very '80s in its sound and musical landscapes (makes me feel like I'm in South Carolina, Georgia or sunny Florida), but sounds so fresh and never outdated now. This was a group that took it and ran with it creatively with their success in the '80s and I think that they compiled a good compilation in its 42 minute span.

I am not sure how many people know the real history behind the name of the group - apparently there was this war criminal who spent his last days in prison, and eventually went crazy. He would pace the cell endlessly, and that too in a rather strange fashion. The guards jokingly called it "Spadau Ballet", combining the name of the prison and the strange gait of the crazy General. There is nothing to laugh about this album, though. Pure gold, with deep, meaningful lyrics ("True" springs to mind). The others are excellent too, but would take some time to grow on you. Once they do, you'll like them all the same way. Happy listening :-)

I liked the music, but like the title says, it was repetitive. First of all the songs were very short (3:23 and 2:52 respectively). If you listened to the samples you pretty much already listened to all the music you're going to hear on this CD. The first song only has one part to it and the second song has three parts - the part you hear in the sample, a part consisting of the beat in the sample and the sound of someone flipping through TV channels and the outro which consisted of 2 notes and static.

I liked the little music that was on this, but I thought I would get two full songs. Just be cautioned that there isn't alot to this release.

I remember when I heard it for the 1st time on college radio in 1978...It blew me away....It sounded so fresh and different. Unlike anything I had ever heard before. And almost 30 yrs. later It would still stand out,and be relevent if it was released today..That says alot. Theres not many songs I could say that about....A true groundbreaking masterpiece...Its a shame that there are only 2 songs by the Normal (aka D.M.) There probably could have been alot more.....AHH What A Great Era In Music. I miss it!!!

The fact that they never recorded anything else has been bothering me since i first bought this 45 when it came out. I heard it once on k-roq, when to Zed records in Long Beach and bought it. I was AMAZED to see it on cd. Theres only one other band i can think of that should have recorded more and thats Spitting Teeth.

The Colourfield offered a lesson in how to synthesize various genre and period influences into music that is both utterly of its era (part of the "new pop" movement), uses influences from the past, yet even today sounds as strikingly original as the day it was released. The 60s pop and folk references are obvious on this album, but it also shares the crisp production and stainless pop sheen of contemporaries like Prefab Sprout. It is bouncy, upbeat, orchestral pop with a dark vision at its core.

This is Terry Hall's coming of age album. His journey from the idealist anti-Thatcher, anti-racist, political dance music of the Specials, through the neo-primitivism of Fun Boy Three, takes a jaded, cynical turn with his third band, the Colourfield. The album musically inhabits the 60s even as it rips apart the dreamy idealism of the era in "Faint Hearts" and "Armchair Theatre": "you see yourselves as soldiers, with flowers in your holsters, will all this wishful thinking, keep your ship from sinking?" "your brave words will be spoken, as your bones are being broken," "demonstrations pass me by, this must be the age of something" The lyrics offer an endless litany of the hypocrisies lurking beneath the nice sounding illusions of bourgeois leftists. (The album also contains the requisite mid-80s pro-vegetarian song, "Cruel Circus," see the Smiths, James, etc).

Hall also casts his jaded eye on romance in "Take," "Castles in the Air," and "Sorry": In these songs, love never lasts, relationships devolve into petty feuds about possessions ("but me and the cat own the lease on the flat, and nothing you do can ever change that") or become a cold war of cruelty. Even the closest thing to a hit off the album, "Thinking of You," with its sunny chorus, has a dark undertone of mistrust. The real gem on the album is the cover of the Roche's "Hammond Song," which is vastly superior to the original (this is admittedly a personal bias, as strident female folk voices make me want to tear my hair out). It is simply beautiful.

This album always surprises me when I hear it again after a long while. It is sophisticated new pop: glossy outside, troubled inside. Musically each song has hooks and beautiful melodies, puncuated by moments where something else happens, an epic crescendo, a flamenco flourish, an orchestral pounding. It's one of the best of the era, worth searching out and worth paying a premium if you have to.

Not much more i can say about this cd that others havent already written.Managed to get the japanese import version with the extra tracks. It was certainly worth paying the �60 !!It makes you wonder how much of a demand is needed of a cd before record companies decide to reissue ???I had the pleasure of being bought up in Coventry and following Terry halls career from his two tone days and have to say,if you havent already, do get hold of his solo albums "Home" and "Laugh" cause they rank as highly as this album does..say no more ....

Way back in the mid-eighties, the first song that I ever heard from the Colourfield was the full version of "Castles in the Air." I was so stricken by the vocals of Terry Hall and the wonderful rhapsody that is the song, which combines tango, pop, metal, and classical riffs. I knew then that I had to learn more about the band. After much effort, I discovered the album. I listened to it and found out that there was more to The Colourfield than "Castles in the Air"! Trust me, buying this album won't disappoint you at all. It is so musically diverse that, excepting the great vocals of Hall, you'd think this album was made by different bands.

The quirky opening track "Thinking of You" is nothing but fun. Then there are the other notable tracks such as "Take," "Yours Sincerely," and the sad but unrepentant "Sorry."

The additions to this compilation are nothing short of spectacular. The band's remake of "Windmills of Your Mind" is better than any other, including the original. It is truly a touching and spiritual rendition. The other exceptional tracks are the self-titled "The Colour Field," which has a very unique sound; "Pushing Up The Daisies," a funny tribute to death; and "Things Could Be So Beautiful."

All in all, The Colourfield was a band that showcased the brilliance and genius of 80s Brit rock-pop, yet was altogether head and shoulders above the more popular acts of that time.

Trust me, you won't regret buying this CD.

This is such a beautiful album I don't even know where to begin. "Colours Fly Away" and "Culture Bunker" are two of my favorite songs. Echo And The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes were contemporaries of each other in the Liverpool scene of the early eighties, but I think Teardrop Explodes had the advantage with Julian Cope's powerful vocals and excellent song craftsmanship. Where Echo is more gloomy dirgelike garage rock, Teardrop is more cheerfully psychedelic with more advanced musical composition (I don't mean like prog rock; they're just more colorful and less simple than Echo). Anyway, the point is if you like Echo, you'll probably like this.

Classified by many as the Love album that never was, the Teardrops second coming was indeed as ferociously unbalanced and deviant from the canon as anything Arthur Lee has yet produced.Still,it was rock solidly anchored in brilliance.Julian Cope's shape shifting song structures left no stone unturned in his quest for diversity.The album's mind boggling scope(which goes from punk to psychedelia and back) makes it a difficult listen,with Cope's cryptic writings only making it harder to really comprehend the music.Still,when you do "get" the songs you'll probably love them forever."Colours Fly Away","Passionate Friend","The Great Dominions" or "Like Leila Khaled Said" are all unbelievably beautiful ,colourful songs and of what true genius is really made of."Wilder" may not have "Kilimanjaro's" imediacy and punkish edge but it does have a larger growth capacity on the listener.And above all it presents us a more refined,exquisite Julian Cope's tunesmithery.

The Teardrop Explodes appeared at the end of the 70's, led by Julian Cope. They combined a post punk British sensibility with the psychedelic revival that was going on there at the time, and were very sucessful in Britain. This is their second album and arguably their best. Sadly, Cope couldn't hold the band together just as they were begining to get some exposure and touring in the US. He began to drift into an LSD induced fog for a few years. His solo work since then has been very erratic and not very successful. The breakup of TTE left only one other band of any stature in this movement to carry the torch: Echo And The Bunnymen, who went on to make a fairly big name for themselves in the US as well as Britain. Prior to TTE and Echo, Cope and future Bunnyman, Ian McCullogh were in a band together. One can only speculate what might have come from that had they stayed together.
In my opinion, TTE was a better all around band than Echo.
Cope's vocals were far more expresive and his arrangements far more complex. He wrote songs that were often easy to sing along with, but laced with quirky lyrics. He still retains that talent to this day, though his recording quality is often shabby.
"Wilder" makes a great introduction to Julian Cope. It was mine way back in 81. It's certainly some of his most focused work.
Other works by Cope I recomend are: "Saint Julian" (1986) and "Peggy Suicide" (1991)

This is such a beautiful album I don't even know where to begin. "Colours Fly Away" and "Culture Bunker" are two of my favorite songs. Echo And The Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes were contemporaries of each other in the Liverpool scene of the early eighties, but I think Teardrop Explodes had the advantage with Julian Cope's powerful vocals and excellent song craftsmanship. Where Echo is more gloomy dirgelike garage rock, Teardrop is more cheerfully psychedelic with more advanced musical composition (I don't mean like prog rock; they're just more colorful and less simple than Echo). Anyway, the point is if you like Echo, you'll probably like this.

Classified by many as the Love album that never was, the Teardrops second coming was indeed as ferociously unbalanced and deviant from the canon as anything Arthur Lee has yet produced.Still,it was rock solidly anchored in brilliance.Julian Cope's shape shifting song structures left no stone unturned in his quest for diversity.The album's mind boggling scope(which goes from punk to psychedelia and back) makes it a difficult listen,with Cope's cryptic writings only making it harder to really comprehend the music.Still,when you do "get" the songs you'll probably love them forever."Colours Fly Away","Passionate Friend","The Great Dominions" or "Like Leila Khaled Said" are all unbelievably beautiful ,colourful songs and of what true genius is really made of."Wilder" may not have "Kilimanjaro's" imediacy and punkish edge but it does have a larger growth capacity on the listener.And above all it presents us a more refined,exquisite Julian Cope's tunesmithery.

The Teardrop Explodes appeared at the end of the 70's, led by Julian Cope. They combined a post punk British sensibility with the psychedelic revival that was going on there at the time, and were very sucessful in Britain. This is their second album and arguably their best. Sadly, Cope couldn't hold the band together just as they were begining to get some exposure and touring in the US. He began to drift into an LSD induced fog for a few years. His solo work since then has been very erratic and not very successful. The breakup of TTE left only one other band of any stature in this movement to carry the torch: Echo And The Bunnymen, who went on to make a fairly big name for themselves in the US as well as Britain. Prior to TTE and Echo, Cope and future Bunnyman, Ian McCullogh were in a band together. One can only speculate what might have come from that had they stayed together.
In my opinion, TTE was a better all around band than Echo.
Cope's vocals were far more expresive and his arrangements far more complex. He wrote songs that were often easy to sing along with, but laced with quirky lyrics. He still retains that talent to this day, though his recording quality is often shabby.
"Wilder" makes a great introduction to Julian Cope. It was mine way back in 81. It's certainly some of his most focused work.
Other works by Cope I recomend are: "Saint Julian" (1986) and "Peggy Suicide" (1991)

" All Four One " is one of the twenty best rock albums of all time. The Motels had a timeless style like The Doors and sound of the cd is outstanding with the added bonus tracks are a plus. My only complaint is the " Full" hot sexy photo of Martha from the original inside album packaging (which matched the outside cover art) is only a partial. Capitol you almost got it right. I also have the " One Way" cd version which does have the picture, but the sound quality is average at best.

I love this album and its' expanded edition,though some will debate whether it was true to the group's sound.The truth is,that the group's first two albums weren't commercially successful in the U.S.A.,and that a third album that the group recorded wasn't acceptable to Capitol,and wasn't released.The problem wasn't so much in the songs,but in the arrangements.But producer Val Garay(formerly an engineer for Linda Ronstadt) came up with a brilliant idea:get some very slick L.A. sessionmen to fine tune the arrangements,and replace the group members on the instrumental tracks in the studio,leaving the group members the simpler task of immitating the newly improved arrangements onstage.When Garay was asked about the use of sessionmen in an interview with the(long-defunct) magazine "Modern Recording and Music",he said "Maybe they'll be ready(to play) next time",which obviously humiliated the group.Still,the hits(and the use of sessionmen) continued for the remainder of the group's association with Garay.Without Garay and the sessionmen,the hits stopped.Now,some of the songs from the scrapped album "Apocalypso" debut as bonus tracks(including early versions of "So L.A." & "Mission of Mercy" played by the group),and you also get a live version of "Only The Lonely",where the group tries to approximate the studio version that they didn't play on(for the group's original studio version from the "Apocalypso" sessions,see the group's outtakes album "Anthologyland").What Val Garay did in the studio(to get the group hit albums & singles) was correct.Martha Davis(with whomever backs her singing and writing) IS "The Motels"

Only until just recently, I owned this album on vinyl only! I was just a little kid back when this was released and purchaced by my mother. I still remember sitting on the living room floor listening to it with headphones. I would just stare at her picture until, yeah it is to this day burned into my memory. I knew all the lyrics by heart. As I got older, I began to worry about something happening to my record. I tried not to think about how I would cope if I lost the ability to hear all the songs that have meant so much...Then it was finally available on CD format, I was estatic! Only the Lonely, and Take the L are the big hits from the day, but my favorites then as a kid and now have remained the same. Mission of Mercy, Art Fails, Change My Mind, So L.A., Tragic Surf, and Apocalypso are just perfect! They will always remind me of being a kid, a not-so-distant past when vinyl used to spin; playing music meant you had to pay attention because in order to hear the entire thing the record had to be flipped. Which added another dimention to it; which side of the album first would I pick? Someday, I am going to cover either Art Fails or Change My Mind! "Cause the man on the corner got something new and something new is good for you, today!" What else is needed to say...

Where do you start with Paul Weller and what he has accomplished? These two albums are a start. Perhaps one of the greatest British song writers, poets and man about style to never get truly discovered in the states. These two albums have some different styles and sounds but thats what made the Jam soooo good. Just about every song on these is great. "Thats Entertainment" has been copied by a few artists but the original on Sound Affects is heads above the others. The Jam defined the second Mod movement in the early 80's and these two albums are full of passion and energy. Go get them!

My two very favorite Jam albums (I have never been able to decide between them which one I love more), put together on one disc! Thank you, thank you, thank you to whoever had the good taste to do this!! I've been a huge fan of this band since 1980, and in the 90's have had a hell of a time replacing my precious records (which, being a landlocked Texan, were not easy to find in the first place!) with CDs - there are the greatest hits collections, but so many gems are inevitably left out of those. This CD is the answer to a prayer. Absolute shimmering brilliance, from beginning to end - powerful, beautiful, sometimes shocking in it's genius. Thrilling to listen to, and doubly thrilling to turn people on to! I cannot recommend it highly enough. P.S. I believe "In The Crowd" is my all-time favorite...

The Jam was a terrific band who, sadly, imploded none toosubtly in the early Eighties. All of their albums are great(with thearguable exception of THE GIFT; personal taste talking there), but these two are the greatest of the great. Paul Weller is at his snarly, romantic best singing his songs of have-nots dreams and ambitions, and he, Buckler and Foxton really kick throughout. The rockers are ace, but it's Weller's ballads that stay with you after repeated listenings, particularly "English Rose," the Punk "Waterloo Sunset." Get this disc today; it's the spirit of '77 at it's best on two excellent albums!