Customer Reviews

Very Best of Classix Nouveaux

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

 

 

Not a bad collection from this eighties band. The collection focuses on their singles and dance tunes which kind of disappointed me (I really wanted more stuff from their dark, sci-fi ridden first album) but the sound is good and there are a couple of songs here that even hardcore fans might find they had forgotten or never heard.

Sixteen songs (mainly radio or extended versions) mostly from the first two albums with only two cuts from the third release and a couple of songs whose origins escape me (it's been SO long since I've played my vinyl).

The combination of synthesizers and guitar are pure trademark eighties but Sal Solo's banshee-scream-to-a-growl range was a sound that NO ONE could imitate! Sal also wrote the liner notes for this collection.

These guys produced some of the slickest music of the 80's. This is right up there with early Spandau Ballet, early Duran Duran and Visage!

Along with Duran and Flock of Seagulls, Classix Nouveaux were the torch-bearers for the British New Romantic/Futurist movement.
Surpringly the songs have stood up well to the test of time.
This compilation is well worth buying- either to rekindle fond memories or just to see what you missed out on first time around.

If it weren't for the glaring omissions of "Every Home Should Have One" and "Nasty Little Green Men", this would be the perfect CN compilation CD. I would have left "1999" and "Soldier" off (weak entires, in my book), used the single edit of "Forever And A Day" (the extended version ruins the song), put on the aformentioned duo, plus another (or both) of the forgotten treasures from these guys, "Tokyo" and "Run Away". Still, any CD containing CN recordings is better than a sharp stick in the eye. This has been a long time coming, and it's really good to have this in my collection (I have all their vinyl, including the 3 LPs, and about 15 12" singles). Wouldn't it be great to see this kind of CD release from other New Romantic acts of the time, like Scars and Landscape.

Fantastic - been waiting for this for a long time. Well worth the wait

I'm not really a fan of this band but I love the very haunting song "Never Never Comes". However, I wish I got the Secrets album where the song was originally from if the CD was available at the time (1997) because this so-called "Very" Best of does not even include the two other songs that I sorta like which are 'Heart from the Start'(which hit #1 in Poland) and 'When They Have All Gone' which are in the Secrets album. I like those 3 songs because they actually have melody and not too focused on 80's driven synthesizer and drum machines. Even the Liberty Singles Collection is better than this. If you just want to discover the band skip this and buy that one which pretty much have all the songs that you need to hear from the band including B-sides that were not included in any of their albums or the best of. However, it's still missing 'Heart from the Start' and 'When They Have All Gone', otherwise I don't pretty much care about their other songs, in that case, just buy the Secrets album which came out 2003. Oh well, I got this cheap from a BMG subscription way back and just paid $7+tax+S&H which at that time didn't list all of the songs in the album and Classix Nouveaux was not even available on Amazon. So disappointed.

They were a 1-hit wonder in UK, and they were just a blip in the US. They are relegated to one of the obscure bands of the 80s so it's a stretch to say that they are torch-bearers of the New Romantic movement in the early 80s. Compared to the popularity of Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Ultravox, Japan, Adam and the Ants, Brian Eno, Roxy Music, and Visage, CN is considered an unknown band by many in the US and I can understand why.