WHO IS A RIGHT MISERABLE SO AND SO THEN? (Dark Side Of The 80s)

Member Name: benlepensive

Product:	Dark Side Of The 80s
Date:	02/03/09 (27 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 40 miserable moments

Disadvantages: bleak

Now with all the bright cheerful pop albums of the eighties doing the rounds, it is refreshing to see something so dark and sinuous on the market. This album gathers some of the more sinister and challenging songs from the eighties. It doesn't make for an easy listen but that is part of the appeal. Open your ears to some new sounds and push Wham to one side for a few minutes.

Highlights:

Robert Smith's unhinged vocals in 'Lullaby' is one of The Cure's finest moments. Not that accessible on the first listen. but a richly layered song which will reward on repeated playing.

The Cult's 'She Sells Sanctuary' benefits from the all time greatest guitar riffs which you will recognise, but probably not have been able to place before listening to this.

Killing Joke's 'Love Like Blood' does what it says on the tin, dark and depraved with a creepy and unsettling turn from Jaz Coleman, who was one of the most frightening looking men in music in the eighties.

On disc two, Depeche Mode's 'Personal Jesus' is part industrial, part new wave, part pop. It is bleak, stirring and has some wonderful synth work which will sweep over you. A little further down the album, out of place totally is 'There She Goes' by The La's. This chirpy little number which seems far too happy to be sitting alongside such dark songs. Maybe they were running out of depressing songs by this point.

As the album closes, the jovial and ever reliable Billy Bragg turns in his cheeky 'Sexuality' with some knowing lyrics. Bragg, on fine form, delivers his usual array of socially aware lyrics with the right amount of tongue and cheek.

Overall:

40 songs, pretty cool artwork and a powerful antidote to Stock Aitken and Waterman. Go on, get miserable!

Summary: depressing