Customer Reviews

Sedated in 80's

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

 

 

...At least, I had to think again after buying this CD. I had never heard "Lucky Number" by Lene Lovich, which according to the liner notes was a European dance floor staple in the '80s. Wonderful bouncearound head-bobbing happy dancey NWave. Ditto (though not as bouncy) for Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," with its unforgettable spoken (not sung) line from the female vocalist "I might like you better if we sslllept together." Finally, near the bottom of the playlist is a brilliant NW cover of "Money" (I remember this track, by Barrett Strong according to the liner notes, from the Beatles' cover of it on "The Beatles Second Album"). The Flying Lizards put a whole new twist on this ancient track--and that is hard to do with something this old and so multi-covered over the years. It would be hard to find three tracks that better capture the essence of New Wave.

Those were the newbies for me. But "Sedated" has some more great obscurities too--Berlin's "Sex (I'm A...)" (a verrry racy song for the early 80s, too racy for air time in fact), "Saved by Zero" by The Fixx (vs. their better known, commonly included, "One Thing Leads to Another"), and ABC's "Poison Arrow"--from their unbelievably outstanding first (1982) album, "The Lexicon of Love." So often the relatively obscure songs on collections like these are throwaways, but someone here has done a great job picking-over the candidates and selecting the obscure winners. Most of the rest of the tracks are mega-hits, so it is a great combo of the well-known and the should-be-well-known.

This is one of the best compilations for NW, and fidelity of the CD is very good too. Liner notes are extensive and interesting, and show the TLC someone put into this CD. Buy and enjoy!

I've been collecting the Rhino New Wave Hits series, which is great, but after stumbling across the Sedated series I have to say it's superior. There are fewer CDs in the Sedated series so the selections on each CD are a bit more focussed. This first volume has a great representation of the best of the era - you get the fun lite stuff like Mexican Radio and the Go-Gos, along with more artsy cuts such as Romeo Void and The Smithereens. Classics like the Ramones I Wanna be Sedated and People who Died. Really just a very enjoyable CD to listen to again and again. I look forward to adding more of this series to my collection.

The Sedated in the 80's series truly captures the spirit of the era for me. It sends me back to the nights at CBGB's or Max's Kansas City in New York when I intentionally sat in front of the speakers so I could feel my internal organs shake (by the way...it didn't damage my hearing...your mother was wrong!).