Customer Reviews

Bela Lugosi's Dead

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

what can you say about peter murphy's haunting tones over a background of goose bump inducing rhythms.... they really knew how to make you listen in those days.... and 9 minutes in one take! cant see any bands around these days doing that!!!!

I purchased a used copy which, after a little cleaning, sounds as good as new.
This single has more substance than many albums do today! I have yet to be bored with this gothic mini-soundscape. Its sinister tone makes one doubt the truth of the song's title. You expect the black -cloaked shadow of Bela Lugosi himself to be leering back at you from an ill-lighted corner! The gloomy atmosphere is not in the least diminished by the completely different subject matter of the b-side,"Boys" either.
I was also impressed when I read that the band's inspirations for this song were silent horrors, "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari" and "Nosferatu" as well as Bela Lugosi's classic 1931 potrayal of Count Dracula and it really captures everything I feel about old vampire films in general, up to and including"Return Of The Vampire" and the Hammer Horror films.

An essential buy, even for casual Bauhaus fans. Perfect for Halloween!

Bauhaus and Peter Murphy, who has long since given up his past and become a Muslim, distilled just about everything great about the era in these elegant, revelatory, and slinky nine minutes. As a young woman in 1981, I stumbled on this EP in Palo Alto, and got a taste of what the REALLY cool kids were listening to...elsewhere. Then, as now, nothing remotely as hip as this was played on the radio in the Bay Area. Later in college, I recognized samples of this seminal tune in other songs. And who wouldn't sample it? "Bela Lugosi's Dead" is like midnight in a really erotic but unsettling dream.

Other bands had done weird before (the UK's Throbbing Gristle, the San Francisco-area Residents, for instance)but Bauhaus used German Expressionist imagery and sleek guitars and actually sounded good. They may have been, in retrospect, the beginning of Goth, but no other band, in my opinion, has sounded remotely like them since.

I still have the vinyl, and I'll never ditch it, because Bauhaus was often...what? Listen to the later "Slice of Life", and other tunes from "Burning From The Inside"--"Who Killed Mister Moonlight", for instance. Not timeless, but instead REMOVED from time. "Velvet lines the black box" of this tune and like Dracula, it's literally undead, and will never die.

Generally I hate EPs from a good band because the amount of material is limited, but the recorded version of Bela Legosi's Dead (Crackle is the only other to have it - I believe) is kind of tougher to find. But it's great. Boys - is good too. Similar to Sisters of Mercy and "lively" Swans...

The title says it all. I am very happy finding this item that I had lost. However like a lot of small sellers No invoice was enclosed which is important for my records and all orders should come with a invoice.

Other than that I am very happy.

The item came well wrapped and delivered quickly. It play perfectly.

Thanks robert