Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sublime Guitar Work with a Mediocre Backing, November 14, 2006
I'd heard the track "Sound Track" (off their album Futurama) on one of the free CDs that comes along with Mojo magazines. I rather liked the track, as it seemed like a good mix of prog and proto-punk glam. Going off on the hunch that the rest of their material would be similar, I decided to purchase the compilation.
Listening to it, I came upon two conclusions. First, the guitarist is bloody great. Effortlessly, he can shred and rock with the purest sort of rough-edge glee. Fantastic. The rest of the band, however, has a tempo problem. They're so darn slow! Here you've got a top-notch guitarist that can rip it up, and yet the rhythm section lags! Oh, how frustrating that is!
Overall, however, some tracks manage to get it right. Many others, however, are caught between the paradox of virtuosity and lethargy. Oh, and the keyboard player adds some good proggyness to the equation. If I had a time machine, I'd go back to the mid-70s, tell Be Bop Deluxe to turn up the tempo and I swear that would make them the gods to punks and proggers alike.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This Guitar Doesn't Lie, February 8, 2005
So said Bill Nelson in the song "Stage Whispers." Unfortunately, not that many people got to hear that guitar in America. Bill Nelson and Be Bop Deluxe were a hot item in their native England, but never quite figured out how to crack the American market. It might have been the band's artiness, or their bizarre futuristic fixations, or the fact that they sounded like David Bowie with a louder guitar. (Imagine if Bowie could play guitar like Mick Ronson, and then stayed in the Ziggy persona for a few more albums.) With great records burdened with titles like "Futurama" or "Modern Music," BBD often seemed victims of their own pretensions.
Too bad for us Americans. Bill Nelson is an extraordinary guitarist, and his leads on the songs "Fair Exchange," "Axe Victim" and "Life In The Air Age" put most of the seventies art rockers of the period to shame. They were not quite art rock and not quite glam, but at their best, Be Bop Deluxe tightrope walked the twin genres like few others save Roxy Music. "Post Cards From The Future" is an apt title for a band that seemed to be incapable of sounding of the moment when they were new.
Oddly enough, the main drawback to "Postcards" is that some of the songs sound dated in an arty sort of way. (The Bowie comparison sneaks in just a little too often.) What you do gain from listening to Be Bop Deluxe some 30 years on ("Axe Victim" first appeared in 1974) is just how much young bands of the eighties, like Ultravox or Duran Duran, were influenced by their copies of "Modern Music" or "Drastic Plastic." Since those CDs and the rest of the Be Bop Deluxe library remain in expensive import only editions, dropping yourself "Postcards From The Future" is a solid message for lovers of glam and English art rock pre-MTV generation.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
+ 1/2 stars...Not As Complete As AIR AGE ANTHOLOGY, March 28, 2005
During the 1970's, Bill Nelson established himself as one of the most exciting guitarists of the period. Unfortunately, very few people were listening--especially in the United States--and that's too bad. Be-Bop Deluxe recorded five studio albums and one live album before calling it quits in 1979. POSTCARDS FROM THE FUTURE does a nice job of cherry-picking highlights from those albums and gives listeners an opportunity to experience one of the era's unsung guitar slingers. [Note: 1997's 2-disc AIR AGE ANTHOLOGY (which duplicates much of POSTCARDS) is still in print and does an even better job of covering this band's career.] HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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