Reissue with the latest 2014 DSD remastering. Comes with new liner notes. Well, it's not the Plugged Nickel or electric Japan in the 70s – but this is a surprisingly great 2LP set of live work by Miles from the early 80s – recorded in New York and Boston, with a lively full-on concert sort of feel! The group features Marcus Miller on bass, Bill Evans on soprano sax, Al Foster on drums, Mike Stern on guitar, and Mino Cinelu on percussion – and the tracks are long tunes, done with a bit of electricity, and sort of a joyous approach overall. Titles include "Kix", "My Man's Gone Now", "Jean Pierre", "Fast Track", and "Back Seat Betty".
Mike Oldfield was back into the extended composition game with Five Miles Out, continuing the "Taurus" series with the mammoth "Taurus II," an entertaining enough romp with references to Irish music, brass bands and Oldfield's beloved Morris. The true standout, though, was the title track, a paean to flying in bad weather that could easily double for Oldfield's feelings about the sort of monumental critical drubbing he was accustomed to receiving. "Family Man" became a huge worldwide hit for Hall & Oates.
Mike Oldfield was back into the extended composition game with Five Miles Out, continuing the "Taurus" series with the mammoth "Taurus II," an entertaining enough romp with references to Irish music, brass bands and Oldfield's beloved Morris. The true standout, though, was the title track, a paean to flying in bad weather that could easily double for Oldfield's feelings about the sort of monumental critical drubbing he was accustomed to receiving. "Family Man" became a huge worldwide hit for Hall & Oates.
Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition of the Liverpool band's 1982 album. The bonus CD includes non-album tracks, radio sessions and more.
Like fellow Liverpudlians O.M.D., China Crisis began life as a synthetic duo who performed brilliantly executed pop songs with quirky edges. And like O.M.D., they seamlessly mixed their love of guitar-based pop with (then) modern musical technology (i.e., synthesizers). Unlike O.M.D., China Crisis' legacy languishes somewhere between there and then with no sign of them ever being considered "hip." Not to say that that is their fault! Gary Daly (the quirky vocalist/keyboardist) and Eddie Lundon (the smooth vocalist/guitarist) made their fascinating debut, Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms…
After the massive success of his 1981 album Face Value, Phil Collins didn't take a much of a break. Genesis released Abacab six months later, then headed out on a long tour. When they got back, Collins jumped right into recording his second solo album, 1982's Hello, I Must Be Going! The album wasn't a huge departure from the formula established on Face Value, built as it was on introspective, gut-spilling ballads, horn-driven R&B jams, arty rockers, and dramatic breakup songs…
Later hailed as one of the key goth rock albums of the '80s and considered by many hardcore Cure fans to be the band's best album, Pornography was largely dismissed upon its 1982 release, witheringly reviewed as a leaden slab of whining and moping. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between: Pornography is much better than most mainstream critics of the time thought, but in retrospect, it's not the masterpiece some fans have claimed it to be. The overall sound is thick and murky, but too muddy to be effectively atmospheric in the way that the more dynamic Disintegration managed a few years later. For every powerful track like the doomy opener "One Hundred Years" and the clattering, desolate single "The Hanging Garden," there's a sound-over-substance piece of filler like "The Figurehead," which sounds suitably bleak but doesn't have the musical or emotional heft this sort of music requires…