Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (Rpkg) [Enhanced, Original recording remastered]

Dexy's Midnight Runners | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 28, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced, Original recording remastered
• Label: Caroline
• ASIN: B00004WGY9
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,966 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

20th anniversary, enhanced remaster. Includes a new full color 20 page booklet and enhanced CD-ROM section featuring full lyrics, photo gallery and the videos to 'Geno' and 'There, There My Dear'. Plus non-album A and B sides only to be heard on PC or Mac. Kevin Rowland oversaw the remastering and repackaging. 2000 release. Standard jewel case.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the truly great albums of the 80s, March 23, 2000

By 

Bill Tobin (Santiago, Chile) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (Audio CD)

Kicking and punching all the way from the opening bars of "Burn It Down" to the searing fade in "There There My Dear", Birmingham-based Dexy's Midnight Runners' debut album is that rare gem: lyrical and musical integrity with infectious melodies. With its roots solidly in the dark nights of Northern Soul and the R&B combos of Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band (the band's 3rd single, "Geno" -- and what was the last track on side one on the 1980 EMI LP release -- was dedicated to the singer), singer Kevin Rowland and guitarist Al Archer fashioned a tight, hard-hitting eight-piece band which included a propulsive 3-horn section. At once venomous ("Burn It Down", "There There My Dear") and poignant ("Keep It", "Love Part Two") this is an album that will have you hummin', tappin' and finger poppin' well after the soles have been worn off your shoes from the dancing.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unhappy, August 29, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (Rpkg) (Audio CD)

Musically I would give this CD 5 stars. However, I am unhappy that the extra tracks included on this 'enhanced' CD are only accessible via a PC. It is annoying that there is all this extra music (single A & B sides etc) which I can't hear unless I'm sitting in front of a PC. (Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I don't enjoy listening to music while sitting in front of a computer screen with a mouse in my hand). The music which IS accessible on a CD player is only 38 minutes long so I can't see why the extra tracks weren't added in the conventional way.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still bracing and invigorating., July 4, 2001

By 

darragh o'donoghue - See all my reviews

This review is from: Searching for the Young Soul Rebels (Rpkg) (Audio CD)

'Searching for the young soul rebels' begins with someone fiddling with a radio finding only mindless fuzz (including, cheekily, 'Anarchy in the UK'), before Kevin Rowland switches it off, bluntly ordering 'For God's sake, burn it down', answered by a gang's call to arms, and the pounding opening song. It is a frightening moment, demanding a leap of faith and unswerving devotion from the listener, a demand that our heart and soul is purified from all the numbing cultrual rubbish that surrounds us, made new and true, worthy to look on the New Soul Vision, evangelised by a uniformed gang of street toughs.

It's such a brilliant idea - melding the sound and emotional depth of Stax and Northern Soul to the aggression and rigour of punk - you wonder why no-one else had thought of it, and why few have done it since.

'Rebels' is one of the great proletarian albums, one that records and celebrates working class life, its cameraderie and energy, and polemicises that its soul need not be the diminished concrete-dimmed bleakness Mike Leigh and Ken Loach would have us believe, but bursts of brass exploding from rigid confines (of course, behind the scenes, the reality was less romantic!). Pulp have done something similar with disco, and the origin of Jarvis' obsessive monologues, where the tawdry everyday is elevated to the intensely dramatic can be found in songs like 'Seven days too long', 'Keep it' and 'Love part one'. Chris Roberts said Dexy's made the greatest album in the world twice. Here's the first.