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Season 4 Episode 16 |
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Jan 05 2009
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Jason Maloney reviews
V o l u m e # 1 9 |
Spandau Ballet: Parade (Reformation)The follow-up strategy to their career-defining album True was essentially: more of the same, with sugar on top. Gary Kemp's penchant for sweetly smooth white soul reached its glossy apex on the eight songs which made up Parade; half of them were Top 20 singles (led by the #3 smash Only When You Leave, and backed up by I'll Fly For You, Highly Strung and Round & Round) but the other half sounded equally polished and hook-laden. It would be the band's last album for Chrysalis; when Spandau returned two years later on CBS a post-Live Aid changing of the guard had occcured in the world of pop and, bar the genuine success of October 1986's Through The Barricades single, it would not be an especially fruitful comeback for the group. |
David Sylvian: Brilliant Trees (Virgin)Japan must have been the most untypical, esoterically-inclined act to ever become teen idols with the Smash Hits crowd; a status never really reflected in their record sales. A sole Top 5 single (the eerie minmalism of Ghosts) and an album that eventually hung around for nigh on a year without reaching the Top 10 at any time (1981's seminal Tin Drum) were the commercial highlights of a career that imploded after the 1982 Live set Oil On Canvas. Frontman and pin-up David Sylvian carried on where Japan had left off with their exotic, rhythmic ruminations; fanbase devotion secured a #17 placing for the introspective beauty of Red Guitar and the album flew into the Top 5 on its first week. A second single, the poetic Ink In The Well, proved an even more left-field Top 40 hit and Brilliant Trees lasted over 3 months on the UK rundown; considerably more than anything Sylvian has subsequently released in a fitful and low-key 20 years since. |
Elvis Costello & The Attractions: Goodbye Cruel World (F-Beat)Another year, another new album for Elvis Costello. The most prolific artist of his generation chalked up his lowest chart entry up to that point with Goodbye Cruel World. Unloved by the critics and, in some ways, by Costello himself (the finished product not matching the quality of the material in his eyes), there were nonetheless a fair few gems among its dozen-or-so tracks: lead single I Wanna Be Loved deserved better than a #35 peak, while The Comedians would later resurface on Roy Orbison's 1989 album Mystery Girl. 1985 would be the first year since arriving on the scene in 1977 that Costello didn't offer a new record, but he made up for this comparative drought with a brace of superb, critically-acclaimed albums in 1986. |
Mike Oldfield: Discovery (Virgin)Having scored a huge Top 5 hit with the Maggie Reilly-sung Moonlight Shadow the year before from the album Crises, Oldfield applied largely the same formula to Discovery, but with distinctly less reward. Once more the main single - in this case the evocative To France - was voiced by Reilly, but it stalled outside the Top 40. The rest of the album took a similar comemrcial route to Crises, but only grazed the Top 20 and it was clear the Oldfield muse, not to mention his popularity, was in a kind of stasis. It took him until 1990's Amarok to break out of this comfort zone, and until 1992's Tubular Bells II to hit paydirt again. |
Roger Taylor: Strange Frontier (EMI)The second solo album from Queen's drummer repeated the Top 30 achievements of his first, 1981's Fun In Space. Throaty rocker (and introductory single) Man On Fire made inroads on the US Hot 100 but never went beyond #66 in Britain. Later extra-curricular sojourns met with decent success, be it completely solo (1994's Happiness) or with his "second" band The Cross (courtesy of their charmingly-titled Shove It in 1988). |
Check the Album Archive database at: The Album Archive.com
The following is a list of Jason's Album Archives online for week ending:
Vol.21: September 12th 1988 (15/09/2005) Vol.20: June 30th 1986 (02/07/2005) Vol.19: June 25th 1984 (23/06/2005) Vol.18: June 17th 1985 (16/06/2005) Vol.17: June 04th 1979 (08/06/2005) Vol.16: May 30th 1983 (02/06/2005) Vol.15: May 22nd 1989 (26/05/2005) Vol.14: May 15th 1995 (20/05/2005) Vol.13: May 2nd 1988 (12/05/2005) Vol.12: April 26th 1982 (28/04/2005) Vol.11: April 17th 1990 (21/04/2005) Vol.10: April 13th 1987 (14/04/2005) Vol.9: April 8th 1991 (08/04/2005) Vol.8: March 31st 1986 (01/04/2005) Vol.7: March 14th 1988 (24/03/2005) Vol.6: March 5th 1984 (17/03/2005) Vol.5: February 28th 1983 (03/03/2005) Vol.4: February 25th 1985 (24/02/2005) Vol.3: February 9th 1981 (10/02/2005) Vol.2: February 2nd 1987 (03/02/2005) Vol.1: January 25th 1993 (25/01/2005)
And in chronological order:
June 04th 1979: Vol.17 (08/06/2005) February 9th 1981: Vol.3 (10/02/2005) April 26th 1982: Vol.12 (28/04/2005) February 28th 1983: Vol.5 (03/03/2005) May 30th 1983: Vol.16 (02/06/2005) March 5th 1984: Vol.6 (17/03/2005) June 25th 1984: Vol.19 (23/06/2005) February 25th 1985: Vol.4 (24/02/2005) June 17th 1985: Vol.18 (16/06/2005) March 31st 1986: Vol.8 (01/04/2005) June 30th 1986: Vol.20 (02/07/2005) February 2nd 1987: Vol.2 (03/02/2005) April 13th 1987: Vol.10 (14/04/2005) March 14th 1988: Vol.7 (24/03/2005) May 2nd 1988: Vol.13 (12/05/2005) September 12th 1988: Vol.21 (15/09/2005) May 22nd 1989: Vol.15 (26/05/2005) April 17th 1990: Vol.11 (21/04/2005) April 8th 1991: Vol.9 (08/04/2005) January 25th 1993: Vol.1 (25/01/2005) May 15th 1995: Vol.14 (20/05/2005)
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
