Customer Reviews

Mirror Moves

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I saw this tour in '84, so this album will always have a special place in my heart. Talk Talk opened up for them and the furs had three encores... what a show!

Anyway, I see it's become fashionable to say this was the beginning of the end of the furs with this album - I completely disagree. I think this music is a bit more polished and accessible than their earlier output, but it's still a really good album. Heck, even Midnight to Midnight is a decent album, albeit their worst.

I see this one hasn't gotten the remastering treatment that the first three albums have received since Sony acquired the furs back catalog. That's a shame. I bought this album on CD back in 84, and still have it. I bought into CD technology early on, and if you have any experience with earlier CD's, they sound HORRIBLE. I've since found this album on vinyl, but would've liked to hear this one remastered. The extras that Sony's been adding to the remastered versions would have been worth the asking price alone.

Anyway, don't shy away from this one, it's a good furs album - but not their best.

The Furs return with "Mirror Moves", which is one of the albums from the 1980s that I would have to classify as a "desert island CD". The production values are much slicker here and the sound is more refined and processed. However, while it lacks the bite of previous Psychedelic Furs' efforts, this CD is just plain fun. Standout tracks include: "Ghost in You", "Heartbeat", "Alice's House", and "Here Come Cowboys". If you like 80s pop-rock at all, you need to own this CD. Say, how about a remaster with bonus tracks now?

this is one of those rare works that is not only one of the band's best, but an all-time better. if i had to choose one album to get stranded on an island with, this might well be it. what's it like to have the first 6 songs all awesome, then the remaining 3 very strong? with 5 ("my time") & 6 ("like a stranger") being the best? it's one of those albums you just don't want to fast forward or skip ANY of the songs--how many are there like that?

I keep hearing how this record was the 'beginning of the end' for the Furs because it sounded different from their previous records. Also, this record get's a lot of flack for sounding like it was recorded in the 80's....well duh! it WAS recorded in the 80's in 1984 to be exact.

I'm very fond of this record, it was a different direction for the Furs but not necessarily a bad one. Damned if this record doesn't have some of their best work on it, most of these titles are constantly being pointed to as the Furs 'crown jewels' and yet the album as a whole get's little respect. I don't understand it.

I don't know why this album wasn't remastered like the previous three releases were. It's certainly worthy of it as the cd dates from the first batch of albums to ever be issued on cd. Indeed as my cd was manufactured in Japan (as the first CBS cds were) when that's where all American cds were.

First off this album suffers the loss of half of the Furs (Ely who departed after making the video for Forever Now's "Love My Way" and Morris and Kilburn who were fired just before the band went into the studio to record Forever Now).
The Furs were a bit fragmented and a tad unfocused in the studio until 1989's Book of Days. Dull performances from session musicians aside this album still has some great songs that win over the listener whereas the would-be-detractions
fall to the wayside. "The Ghost In You" is a great song that
suffers a bit from the iffy keyboard sound (a sound that Richard Butler himself protested but the producer won out) but still the song is too good of a song to let misguided production ruin. "Like A Stranger", "My Time" and "Heaven" are classic Furs ballads. Those songs (much like most of the album) have something of a rainy-day, stay indoors atmosphere. "Alice's House" is a Forever Now outtake and it's a very cool psych-rocker.

The album does have a few mis-steps that indicate the misadventure-to-come known as Midnight To Midnight in the form of "Only A Game", "Heartbeat" - a good song ruined by a slick sax (not the interesting Kilburn sax lines) and ruined beyond repair on a few dance-remixes on 12"s (always a bad idea when a rock band allows someone to do a "dance" remix - an 80's epidemic for sure) and the simply "okay" "Highwire Days".

The album does boast the amazing "Here Comes Cowboys" which is a
classic Psychedelic Furs song. One of their best ever songs.
Very good commentary on fascism in general using "cowboys" as a
convienient term of reference.

The Furs would not release another album as great as this until their over-looked swan song World Outside in 1991.

It was during my sophomore year in high school when I was introduced to The Furs. I was hanging out in my friend's apartment (who had a 100 CD disk changer, which was somewhat of a miracle of modern techonology in the year 1994), and "Mirror Moves" came on. Hearing the first notes of "The Ghost In You," I immediately stopped the conversation to inquire of my friend what fabulous CD was playing. When he informed me, I asked, "Oh, the 'Love My Way' guys"? (Since The Psychedelic Furs had their time when I was in elementary school, and was thus into Sesame Street or The Smurfs, I had no other knowledge of the band other than that song, which I had heard, and still hear, on "Old Wave" nights at clubs). My friend, amused at the difference in our ages (10 years, so he was an adolescent who fervently rushed out to buy "Mirror Moves" when it first came out), told me that there was much much more to The Furs than (sic) " that obnoxiously overplayed and not-so-great hit song." I was soon to learn that he was quite right. I soon acquired a copy of my very first Furs album, and was captivated. I still am. The music is original, inventive, and timeless. And these artsy Brit boys (who are no longer boys; whatever happened to them, after "Love Spit Love?", anyway?!. . .) really know their stuff. They truly mastered the art of both producing delightful tunes and penning intelligent and unique lyrics, which is a fairly uncommon combination in most 80's bands. This album kicks off with the gorgeous and mysterious "The Ghost In You" and ends with the haunting and bitingly cynical "Highwire Days" (which has a very curious and compelling chorus at the end). The whole album is awesome, artsy without pretentions (at least not obviously so), and is really well-produced. The songs follow one another perfectly, weaving a sort of story which explores human frailty, the various complexities of relationships, and the perennial wonder of existence and time (and I have to add that The Furs have a very unique worldview). My favorite tracks are "The Ghost In You" (of course!), the dainty yet powerful "Heaven" (which has some truly interesting lyrics; e.g., "There's a clock on the wall and it counts my time," and "There's a face in the glass and it looks like mine), "Like a Stranger" (a song with an awesome melody and an elusive and fascinating heroine), and "Only a Game" (which pays a sort of odd homage to a "high heeled girl"). If you enjoy interesting, intelligent, unique, and artsy-ish 80's pop (well, this album is pop, after all, and is really different than their superbly raw self-titled debut and the album "Talk Talk Talk,") then I encourage you to get this album. It's a great place to start exploring The Furs oeuvre, as it is possibly the most user-friendly ("Forever Now" is user-friendly, too, but I prefer "Mirror Moves. . . I guess it's a matter of taste). So take that step into the world of The Psychedelic Furs. . . discover and savor "the ghost in you," spend some time with some cowboys, who are "here to save us all" ("Here Come Cowboys"), and bide your time at "Alice's House", where "the butler is serving tea, wearing a shirt without any sleeves"). It's a wonderful album to play while you're moving around your place, perhaps even dancing around, and making your own "mirror moves". . . Ah, yes. . . hope you dig this album as much as I do!

Next to Butler's World Outside,and maybe Talk, Talk, Talk, THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST ALBUMS EVER! If you like Martin Amis, Andy Warhol & stridently bitter lyrics that sting into the heart of apathy, then you will listen to his music until it becomes like a mantra, or a Secret Sharer. Butler is the antithesis of hardcore punk in that he actually cares about articulating his lyrics AND sending a dart of consciousness into the world! Poetic & playfully narcissitic editorials- whilst the singer himself remains as elusive as a magician's scarf.

I had this on cassette and finally bought the 2008 release of this- great sound- made me feel like i had just toked up-always thought this to be one of the best all time "albums" and still do- not one bad song.

This record was my real introduction to this band (My vinyl copy melted in a girlfriend's car in the high school parking lot!), but in retrospect, it's probably not the place for someone to start.

The songs "Heaven" (great video) and "The Ghost in You" are absolutely beautiful and perfect (the best thing this amazing band ever did). The rest of the record sounds like commercial filler.

One of the greatest hits records is probably better for the uninitiated. Me? I'd pick up any of the first three records. They all demonstrate the evolution of a truly remarkable band.

I would have ranked this lower, but looking over the titles again I find a lot of unique gold here as they begin to slip into the dancehall abyss that would sound their death toll a few years later. I credit this to the loss of their vital drummer Vince Ely, now replaced by producer/studio drummer Keith Forsey. Or maybe because the brits had to record in the foreign land of Los Angeles for the first time, and longed for the properly dreary environment for inspiration.

This album comes across as a bit forced, wringing high-gloss pop anthems out of artists more attuned to denser and more difficult works. Somehow the translation works, however, and the startling beauty of "The Ghost In You" and "My Time" stand head and shoulders above most of what any major label was producing at the time. "Here Come Cowboys", another nod to U.S. politics, and "Alice's House" retain a mild flavor of the old mysteriousness, while annoying cuts like "Heartbeat" sound loud alarums as to future works down the road.

If there was ever another musical portrayal of "Heaven" as successful as this one, I'd love to hear it. Still an essential album, even if it shines a little too brightly for its own good.