Customer Reviews

The Essentials ( HOWARD JONES )

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

 

 

The good thing about this disc is that it contains Howard Jones' music.

The bad things about this disc are:

1. Too few tracks for the money. The "best of" cd which was released when Howard left WEA several years ago contains much more music and only costs a few more dollars.

2. Rhino used the album version of "No One Is To Blame," not the hit single version. Perhaps this will corrected on future copies.

3. The remastering probably helps when compared with the U.S. editions of the original albums, but the UK/EU imports always bested the U.S. pressings anyway. At any rate, the "Best Of" cd sounded pretty good, even on the U.S. pressing; this new compilation doesn't change much except for more emphasis in the bass region. The only other benefit regarding buying a Rhino disc with "Things Can Only Get Better" is that it has a slightly longer fade (only a few seconds) which matches the original U.S. 45rpm single.

4. It's strange that the disc includes "All I Want," which only reached #76 on the US pop charts, but leaves off "Lift Me Up," Howard's last US Top 40 hit.

My biggest disappointment is that there is nothing new here -- not even rare photos. What would have really made this disc a treasure would have been to use the original 12" single mixes, since most of them have never appeared on cd in their full form. (The non-US '12" album' was issued on cd, but that compilation has some crossfades and different edits.)

While I have a certain soft spot for Howard Jones, this "Essential" collection makes two key errors. Jones' last top 40 hit, "Lift Me Up," is not included, and the version of "No One Is To Blame" is the version from "Dream into Action." The hit version can be found on the "One to One" CD or the older "Best of Howard Jones."

It is too bad, because Howard Jones is one of the key players in the 80's synth-pop revolution. Once "Things Can Only Get Better" broke the top 10. Jones' effervescent and relentlessly optimistic personality helped put a face to synthesizers, along with Thomas Dolby and The Human League. The fact that "Everlasting Love" and "No One Is To Blame" both became huge adult contemporary hits is indicative of just how much Jones contributed in making machine music palatable to general listeners. Once he lost his more personal touch ("The Prisoner" is a good, but generic, rock song), his audience began to dwindle.

He evolved away from the one man band approach and became a piano solo artist after he was dropped by Elektra in the early 90's. But this set does a pretty good job at wrapping his best known songs up on a single disc. If not for the album version of "No One...," this would rate a fourth star.

The great enigma that is Howard Jones: great, exciting, promising debut album, respectable follow-up and then New Wave and synth-pop die and so does Howard Jones' career. That's why this version of his best of is really the best one to get as it truly indicates the best work that the man's ever done. If you get "Human's Lib" and "Dream Into Action", you pretty much have the best that the guy's got to offer and the rest is very much filler. I'm hoping a remastered mlps version of the 2 albums will be available soon and in the meantime, this version of his best hits will sustain me. It's no accident that of the 12 tracks here, 3 come from the first album and no less than 5! come from the second. The remaining 4 tracks are the best of the rest and I can tell you that even the "filler" from the first 2 albums are much better than anything else from HJ on his subsequent albums. This disc has also been remastered well for a great sound and represents quality over quantity. Am I the only one to recognise that the Spice Girls' early hit (you know the 'Tell me what you really, really want' stuff) totally rips off the riff from "Thing's Can Only Get Better"?

This is an excellent CD with most of Howard's biggest hits. However, I would highly recommend that you purchase his other greatest hits CD, released a few years earlier. It has a few more average songs and a few more excellent songs, such as Hide and Seek, that are missing from this release. You will be glad that you did not sacrifice a few songs for a few dollars.

Howard Jones had some great songs in the 80s and they are all here on this album, just bought back so many memories, great sounding and great songs!!!

I love this CD, but where the hell is "Conditioning" thats one of his best, and its not even on this collection!

A succinct document that provides ample evidence for Mr. Jones and his persistent popularity.
You will laugh at how many of these songs you know.
Seriously.
Lyrics came out of my mouth that I haven't thought of in 20 years...it was almost creepy.

Half of the album comes from his two big hit albums (which should be remastered and re-released by now, shouldn't they? Rhino, hello?) and they were deserved hits. This is an amalgamation of teeny-bop New Wave and funky dance pop that sounds like everything that was on the radio at the time.

"New Song", "What Is Love" and "Pearl In The Shell" (off album #1) and "Like To Get Know You Well", "Things Can Only Get Better", "Look Mama" and "Life In One Day" (off #2) are, like it or not, genre/era classics.

"No One Is To Blame" here is the infinitely preferable, though less popular, original album version. The drum-tastic Phil Collins version is not here...

The remaining tunes are pleasant enough, although they fail to hit the highs of that first salvo of songs.

It's a brief collection: this set is probably not for the fervent fan.

But if you have any good memories of Howard Jones' music from "the good old days", this is definitely the place to start.

If you appreciate celebrating originality and songs that actually say something, then this collection is for you. This selection includes many of his greatest hits from the 1980s. It's great to know that he's still around making more records. He's a gem!