Customer Reviews

Reformation

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

 

 

The 80's have always been awfully associated with bad clothes, bad hair and to some...bad music. I, for one have always liked 80's stuff and I can see it more these days when people aren't able to come up with new lyrics and or new music but just remake good old stuff.

REFORMATION is a reminder to us of the good old days when music was made to make you feel good,..(never mind their eye liner or their padded jackets)..no violent lyrics...no BIG BASS that would make you throw up...no electronica beats that either put you to sleep or worse, make you dizzy. Don't get me wrong...I can appreciate most of the different genres but the 80's seem to be closest to my heart.

Spandau Ballet altho not as commercially popular as the ever-evolving Duran Duran, has made some really good music and it is in this worthy 3 CD Pack with their pictures during their younger years beautifully crafted by people behind Chrysalis Records...I can say that this THEIR collection to keep.

Standout cuts for me are:
*Updated version of True....altho the original will never be out of place at any time, it gives me shivers to hear TONY HADLEY's (brilliant vocals) crystal clear voice and it is evident why there really is no need for lyrics sheet, TONY HADLEY has the voice!

*Heaven Is a Secret....an almost unnoticed song from the TRUE album but i reckon it is one of the gems...a very feel good song

*With The Pride....another underappreciated ballad from Spandau showcasing Tony's emotional singing (hmmmm...Round and Round has been overlooked...)

* ALL LIVE TRACKS ARE THE REASON WHY I BOUGHT THIS CD....I have been waiting for this for ages as this is the proof why Spandau Ballet is one of the best live artists and fares them far off from DURAN DURAN....

* The remixes are fine specially the almost epic GOLD, uplifting LIFELINE,.., witty COMMUNICATION...my favorite- THAT OTHER VERSION (from the 12" LP) of HIGHLY STRUNG. This will make you think how far remixes have evolved from the 80's when people were just contented with 1 Extended version....perhaps a Dub Version or an instrumental version not like these days when one song will be remixed by a whole school of DJ's but I am not complaining...

Let us also not undermine Gary Kemp's ever consistent writing and of course the whole bands efforts. I can also not imagine that these blokes were barely in their 20's when they started singing about life, love and everything in between. Those were the happy era of the 80's and it's just sad that they ceased to make the same music as before.

Meantime, REFORMATION is a happy adventure back in time...buy it, try it and you'll thank CHRYSALIS for this new GEM to treasure....GOLD indeed.

Immaculate remastering makes this release shine like a new car. The now old songs sound new and fresh, rattling my speakers with 80's white jive. Reformation 3 CD set is the best anthology I have every bought! Great pictures and short story is included to give you a better sense of the outpouring of creativity surrounding the band. Great demos, extended versions and a complete live show captures these new romantics at their peak! One minor con (very minor) is the remastering is almost too good. Though I would not want to listen to their demos or live show any other way, the glossy cleaning makes one lose the actual sound of the live show and probably misrepresent how the demos sounded at the time. But I am complaining about awesome fidelity? No. No complaints about Reformation, the best anthology I have ever bought.

If you had to distill Spandau Ballet down to 3 CDs, the compilers of this box did a fantastic job. I was especially happy to see the "Musclebound" b-side "Glow" appear in both long and short versions. It was the first track of their dramatic transition to latin funk that was shocking at the time. Disc 2 is the soundtrack to their great home video "Live Over Britain" and was what really made me a fan, even after hearing their first two albums and not being convinced. This compilation shows the full breadth of the band's releases on Chrysalis stylistically beginning with the stiff sounding New Romantic era, through the latin funk 2nd album era, and culminating in the blue eyed soul of "True" and "Parade," which saw them selling records like hotcakes. It holds a diverse blend of LP cuts, singles, remixes, live tracks and a few unreleased rarities in good balance and proportion.

Too bad the same balance and proportion wasn't applied to the audio remastering! This is a harshly compressed release that has a very limited dynamic range in order to achieve extreme loudness! It is super brickwalled and I ended up remastering many of these cuts from my vinyl in order to have something I can listen to without fatigue or deafness. If you own the earlier 12" Single Collection, don't get rid of it if you value music's dynamic range! The same cuts repeated here sound ghastly. That's why my review gets docked a star. Hardcore fidelity purists would probably dock it 2 stars, truth be told.

When this orginally came out as a triple LP, Spandau Ballet was one of my favourite bands, and this quickly became one of my favourite albums. If you can get a hold of this it may not be their peak, but it certainly shows their rise to the top. All members of this tight unit are all very skilled at what they do. All you have to do is look at their videos. The energy conveyued in this set is so enjoyable. I think you will like it. Their are great versions of Paint Me Down, Coffee Club and so many others. It is hard to say how many more Gold singles they would have achieved if they didn't allow their personalities to destroy the band.

Having reformed just over a year ago, it will be interesting to see where they go to from here. They broke up well before the internet generation began and today anyone can become a star, thanks to social media and hype. And today's crop of stars need far less talent to make it big, sad to say. 15 minutes of fame has become more like 15 seconds these days. Duran Duran never really broke up and released albums steadily throughout the 90s and into 00's. I thought that their quality was steady but the media thought otherwise and each album was received more poorly than the previous, unjustly so but I think they are a victim of the i-generation, where talent and hard work count less than hype and flash. I fear the same fate will befall Spandau Ballet. They were my favourite band of the 80s and I bought the Reformation - Live at the O2 DVD and it was fantastic. I haven't followed their separate careers since the split and don't know how active Gary and Martin have been in the music biz but with the number of 80s bands reforming over the past decade, I hope they can learn from that. Kajagoogoo, NKOTB, Tears For Fears, Bananarama, even Take That have reformed, with little to no success apart from the latter. I hope that the Spands make a decent go of their reformation and get to release a whole albums of new material in the years to come.

I particularly enjoy this release because it contains the hard to find 12" mix of Glow and their Live Over Britain concert from 1983.
For some reason this release and most other hits releases plus their O2 DVD, omit songs from the Heart Like A Sky album. I have that CD and it was my 2nd ever CD I bought in 1990. I didn't think that it was such a bad album and Be Free With Your Love and Raw are 2 of my favourite tracks on the disc.

In America, Spandau Ballet means "True", and that is a shame. This is a fantastic compilation of the bands work, from their days with Chrysalis Records. Give a listen to Coffee Club, Chant #1, Glow and the club mix of Gold, and you will see why this band was second to nobody across Europe and Asia in the 1980's.
The live CD from the True tour is the icing on the cake, and you can feel the energy the crowd felt as the band knocked out song after song. This is a great deal since you get 3 CD's full of music, and a history of the best 80's band ever.