Spandau Ballet - The Albums 1980-84 (2012)

EU Import

An imported box set featuring Spandau Ballet's four studio albums released during the years 1981 - 84, when they recorded for the Chrysalis label. No liner notes, no bonus tracks, just cardboard sleeve replicas of the original vinyl releases, but for $13.41 I ain't complaining.

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JOURNEYS TO GLORY (1981)
8 tracks, 37 minutes

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #209
• Billboard Rock: #41

Reviewers called out this debut for its artsy pretentiousness, even quoting the band's own lyrics: "The art is pretending it's Art." The ad below includes a descriptive list of the band: 1) art, 2) fashion, 3) music. Music is listed third! Still, it's got a few worthy synthpop tunes (I think the best thing here is track 7, Confused), but the rest is the band trying to find its sound through Gary Kemp, a 21 year old songwriter learning how to write songs plus some out of tune vocals from Tony Hadley. Not the soulful sound they'd later become known for; this music shows more post-punk influences than blue-eyed soul. Overall, there's nothing really objectionable about this lackluster album of tunes consisting of only 2 or 3 chords, but there's nothing to get excited about, either.

It's art. It's fashion.

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DIAMOND (1982)
8 tracks, 40 minutes

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Notedly different from Journeys To Glory. Giving it a score of 3 out of 10, Smash Hits called it "boring contrived rubbish." Ouch. Sounds more like contemporaries Haircut 100 or ABC than predecessors Numan or Bowie, but by my count, there's only two decent tracks here: Instinction and She Loved Like Diamond, the latter of which gives us some foreshadowing of what would come next for the band. However, tracks 6-8 are completely unlistenable.

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TRUE (1983)
8 tracks, 36 minutes

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #19
• Billboard Rock: #42
• CashBox: #20
• Rolling Stone: #20

Ahhh, that's more like it. It all comes together here. Maturity and new producers can go a long way. Smash Hits called the album less interesting but more enjoyable and that's just fine with me. Fortunately, this was my first exposure to the band. When my buddy Jim loaned me this LP in '83, I took to it immediately and quickly dubbed myself a cassette copy. As I mentioned in an earlier post regarding the title track:

I love the thing, I always have, and I don't care who knows it. I know all the lyrics and will also vocalize the sax solo. These days, I don't have need for the "I heard this song first so I'm a better person than you" condescension, but insufferable teenage me played that card whenever I could. I'd been a fan of the True album for a good six months before this single hit the local radio waves and I had no reservations about sharing that fact with everybody I knew. Like I said, insufferable.

The track that got me hooked, however, was Communication, particularly the chorus, so I'm partial to that tune. But it's a solid album; the only track I'll occasionally skip among the eight here is Foundation.

According to Gary Kemp via the wonderful Tim's Twitter Listening Party, this album was originally going to be produced by Trevor Horn and I would have loved to have heard that.

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PARADE (1984)
8 tracks, 41 minutes

Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by this CD.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #50
• Billboard Rock: #35
• CashBox: #35
• Rolling Stone: #45

Not quite as good as its predecessor, but the singles are every bit as tasty. There's no first-rate ballad like True, but I listened to the heck out of this album when it was released. It's the exact same sound as the True album and that was just what I was looking for in 1984. Stereo Review called the Parade album "a sort of modern-day dance-club Noël Coward with a beat" and since I can't match that description I won't even try.

My top picks are Only When You Leave (which was called "almost too good a start to the LP"), I'll Fly For You, and Round And Round.

Oddly, when the group moved from Chrysalis to Epic, I didn't follow them. I've never heard any of SB's post-Parade music. Easy enough to remedy that oversight.

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Personal Memory Associated with these CDs: I remember I was listening to the True album and dancing around my house in '83 when it finally occurred to me that disco music was still around and had simply been rechristened as "dance music."

The Parade album reminds me of my dorm room during my freshman year at university, fall 1984, when I was full-on music snob and thought I was so very sophisticated because I was listening to Spandau Ballet while my dorm companions were listening to REO Journeywagon or some such. I had to save the rabble from themselves, obviously. Sheesh. With an attitude like that, it's amazing I was able to make any new friends. Of course, it was those very same people who would eventually turn me on to music from Jean-Michel Jarre, Dancing Hoods, and King Crimson; I quickly realized how narrow-minded I was. More on that first semester here and here.

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Twelve Inch Mixes (1986)
The Singles Collection (1985)