So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music 1977-1983

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 7, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Tigersushi France
• ASIN: B0002JP4GY
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #498,778 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Suis-Je Normale

2. Euroman

3. Roman Photo

4. Disco Rough [I. Smagghe Edit]

5. Carnival

6. Person to Person

7. Wallenberg

8. So Young But So Cold

9. Synchro

10. Mae

11. Switch on Bach

12. Triangle

13. Lighthouse

14. The Force, Pt. 1

15. Welcome (To Deathrow)

16. Iceland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Old-school so ahead of its time it's nu-school -, February 21, 2005

By 

G. Mitchell "greggmitch" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music 1977-1983 (Audio CD)

I came across this CD by surprise, but once I found out it was released only in France on the seminal TIGERSUSHI label, I knew it was gonna be good - and wasn't let down. A fascinating, eye-opening, jaw-dropping, and even highly-educational selection of the cream of the obscure, cult 70s/80s French electro/no-wave/synth-pop/punk movement - as compiled by BLACK STROBE's IVAN SMAGGHE - I know a lot of music, but many of these bands/singles I had never heard of, and they're all flawless in their own DIY way - if you like bands like The Normal, early Mute stuff, John Carpenter soundtracks, etc., this is for you!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The French Cold Wave, July 29, 2008

By 

Lovblad (Geneva, Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music 1977-83 (Audio CD)

This is really typical French cold wave stuff. This was a quite interesting period of the post-punk era when young french bands drew influences from Joy Division, Suicide and others to create something completely unique. Here the great lost tracks are those be the (hypothetical) Prophets like Person To Person. This band comprised Bernard Szajner wjo was a French synthesizer specialist who had also done some laser lighting for the Who if I am not wrong. There is some really great stuff on here that is impossible to get hold of otherwise.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect compilation, quintessential influences.. what a find, February 28, 2005

By 

DerWeg - See all my reviews

This review is from: So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music 1977-1983 (Audio CD)

Ministry and Peaches, Talking Heads and Fatboy Slim - I hear all these and more as seminal influences here in this very listenable CD, a snapshot of an apparently brilliant little epoch in early French synth-based pop.

What matters here is not the era but the songs, invariably good (whether your taste) and strikingly original and, moreover, very good-sounding by any era's standards. The vocals are quite affecting, at moments ethereal, at times just so European and hot.

There's real fire in some tracks - a drum machine and a moog synth pattern CAN really rock out and be downright sexy, coming from the right person's mind. That is the timeless triumph of the very good collected material on this disk.