Customer Reviews

Best of Blancmange

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The Best of Blancmange? If you were in high school somewhere in the neighborhood of 1982 and 1986 you may remember this band. This collection pulls together the major highlights of this synth duo with odd hair and wacky senses of humor. Living on the Ceiling (their only scrape with the charts) and Vishnu have some eastern influences while Don't Tell Me and What's Your Problem provide some insight to how pervasive David Byrne's influence actually was in the eighties. This record has a generous selection of songs from their best release (Mange Tout) which included their deadpan cover of Abba's The Day Before You Came, fifteen years before covering Abba became fashionable. Consider them akin to OMD with substance, or Depeche Mode with a sense of humor. Either way, this is a fine collection of pop songs that will make you want to laugh or to dance.

This best of is just another example of the need of remastering the whole catalog. There are great songs lost as a result missing from Happy Families, Mange Tout, and Believe You Me. Waves, included here, has the possiblity of making one forget the troubles of the day and place one in the middle of a quick vacation of fun, clouds, and humor, what other bands can you say have done that?

Do not overlook this band...they had more talent than Depeche Mode, and others, at this time, and one wishes that they should have persued making more music together.

It's like a beautiful flower cut down...it makes one cry.

I didn't know a whole alot about Blancmange when I decided to purchase this album. I had seen the "Living On The Ceiling" music video on an 80'sMTV channel & heard "Don't Tell Me" on satellite radio. I'd figure this collection would be to my liking, but I was disappointed. Alot of the tracks weren't memorable or catchy. "God's Kitchen", "I've Seen The Word" & "Feel Me" are good songs, they have that Talking Heads vibe to them. I'm not sorry I purchased this album, for I enjoyed a small percentage of these songs.