Customer Reviews

Magnets

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

 

 

Being a vapor fan for more years than I care to count,
I have read many reviews stating that " New Clear Days"
is a better record than "Magnets"

Although I love NCD and would also give it 5 stars, I feel
that Magnets displays much more mature lyrics and
multilayered music than NCD.

I never really noticed that this album is sort of
a new wave concept album. "Johnny" is mentioned
throughout the album and his thoughts leading up
to a presumed assasination(Magnets) are also apparent.

I have to hand to the Vapors they have found a way
to release more "best of" and compilations than records
that they actually put out(2)

I'd love to know if I'm the only one who thinks to be
true. I also believe that if there were a third album
it could have got 6 stars.

Well this was my favourite album about 20 years ago...
I was in a drugstore and they had this cassette in the $1.00 bin
I bought it fast as I remembered what a fantastic album "new Clear Days" was,. And I was so surprised...
Wow!
what a masterpiece!
one that nobody I knew had ever heard before.
It quickly became my favourite album.
Johnny was in LOVE again!

Well here I am again 20 years later paid $15.00 or whatever to get it back again....
Wow!
Johnny is in LOVE again!
It's my favourite album all over again.
I have no words to explain how much pleasure it has brought me to finally get this album back. I have blown away my friends (different ones and the same old ones) with this album which again none of them have heard...
The lyrics are so intense. The new wave sound never sounded better than this! they are the cars times 5!

I can't talk anymore!

I bought The Vapors Magnets to basically complete my Vapors collection. After listening to it, its as good as the first album in my opinion. Although I can't say that the alternate tracks are much different than the album tracks. Highlights include: Jimmy Jones, Spiders, Isolated Case, Civic Hall, Daylight Titans and Silver Machines. A very under rated band that deserved better than "One hit wonders.." description.

David fenton. What a beautifully british name. For whatever reason, perhaps the kitschy cult hit of theirs, they did not blossum commercially. What a loss.

has anyone mentioner they were managed by Paul Weller's (the Jam) dad? yeah, that's right. The second biggest pop band in british history's manager was also managing the vapors. Some time, watch videos from both the jam and the vapors, you will see a lot of similarities in style and such.

Ed bazalgettes's guitar really drove the band, but the entire group made the music with a focused single mind-- The politically intriguing _Lenina_ forced me to read tolstoy ( i'll forgive them someday for that) bazalgette's solo in the same song caused me to buy a guitar and try to play it. While i had no talent for it, (a few punk songs played in another life) it was a wonderful thing to copy.

The vapors musical composition is at once hip yet classical, if you allow yourself, you'll get swept back 30 years and wish you could stay there, in a world where fenton, bazalgette, & smith (twice) continued to produce pop music.

The 20-somethings at my parties still get totally in songs like _spring collection_ and _somehow_, and my favorite _lenina_.

30 years ago, and today, they were and are too cool for the unwashed masses.

Magnets is an album that at first sounds like it is not a good follow up to New Clear Days. However, after listing to it the 2nd time (back in 1984 haha), I was stunned to find out that every single song was not just great, but incredible!!!! This was one record, that I could say had not one bad song. Song writing, great guitar sounds, incredible bass playing (and sound) and of course, Dave's unique voice and song writing make this a 10 star album!! I only wished that more people could have listened to it at my age, I tried to promote it myself on my nu-wave radio show in NY, so I know that may have helped sales(a little)....but by that time the vapors were no longer :( Favorite songs: Daylight Titans, Johnnie's in love (again), Jimmy Jones, Isolated Case, Civic Hall, Silver Machines.

Boy, this takes me back to my college years--after the glorious debut album, "New Clear Days" the Vapors had nowhere to go but down, slightly. The songs are much darker lyrically (the title track especially), and the reggae-flirtations might've been done a little better by the Clash a few years earlier, ("Silver Machines" wouldn't be out of place on the 2nd Elvis Costello record) but the hooks are still there and the production is first-rate. This doesn't sound like it's 30 years old--hell, Green Day could release this tomorrow with their faces on the cover and sell millions. If all you know of this overlooked band is "Turning Japanese" do yourself a favor and get their only 2 studio recordings--the remastered versions include single edits and other goodies.

What a shame the Vapors never made a third album. Magnets is a disappointment if you heard it after New Clear Days but it's got some great songs. Maddeningly, "Civic Hall" was left off the first compilation. It ranks up there with the best stuff on the first album.