 "So good so far" | 2008-09-22 |
| - Reviewed By tbrough |
| During the earlier days of the new wave 80's, while most bands were making dance music and dressing outlandishly (think Duran Duran or A Flock of Seagulls), Richard Butler and his mates in the Psychedelic Furs took on a whole opposite tack. The first Psychedelic Furs album was a sublime mix of Velvet Underground drone and David Bowie's Low Berlin phase. Grinding with the commitment of fresh amateurism, "Sister Europe" caught the imagination of listeners in the UK and a cult following in the US.br /br /The Furs got better fast and cut a classic on the second try with Talk Talk Talk. Containing what is likely their best known song, "Pretty In Pink," it found the Furs upping the tempo and Butler's voice starting to come into its own. The version of PiP here is the original album version, much darker than the re-recording made for the John Hughes film, and "Mr. Jones" is a cleaner single mix. The next album has Todd Rundgren stepping up to the production booth, and he streamlined the band to the point where "Love My Way's" xylophone riff teased the top 40. Forever Now also saw the band start toying with politics on the Reagan bashing "President Gas."br /br /That tightness followed with Mirror Moves and more flirtations with top 40 radio. "Heartbeat" became a dance club hit and "The Ghost In You" really mirrored the Bowie fixation. The Reagan/Thatcher Axis took another poke with "Here Come Cowboys." The wait for success, however, came when Pretty in Pink hit theaters and Midnight to Midnight dropped "Heartbreak Beat," The Furs' highest charting single. But the band hated the album and tried for a more "return to the roots" on Book of Days...which was so under-rated that no songs from it appear here.br /br /The band hit transition for All That Money Wants, a new track on a best of. The Furs' lineup changed, they moved to New York and they released a great comeback, World Outside, but to little notice. Listen to the songs "There's a World Outside" and "Until She Comes," and you'll realize the album was better than its reception. While The Psychedelic Furs progressed from amateur Bowie acolytes to an influential force all their own, it is this Best Of that captures their devolvement on a single CD. |
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 "CD purchase Psychedelic Furs" | 2008-09-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3LM8EKF9DNUBX |
| I am very pleased with the speed this order arrived. I would highly recommend further purchases with company. |
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| "The Furs,,,," | 2008-05-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: A33UXGP8RYXF2 |
| Yes this is another great listen.....Love It ... Get It Now..... |
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| "Great CD" | 2007-12-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A23M6YGZVOEAMS |
| I feel that a CD is well worth it if it has a least 3 good songs on it. This has at least 4 and is very nostalgic. It has remained in my car CD player since I got it |
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| "fine collection of essentials...all you need" | 2007-10-04 |
| - Reviewed By nukephynhighpriest |
This is a all your really need of the Furs/Butler. The albums are padded with strained filler, but Butler was too vain to ever admit he was really a pop single scribe (he should have taken a page from Nike Lowe's book, look who is rich now?).
Best tunes are: Pretty in Pink, Love My Way, The Ghost in You, Until She Comes.
A great value. |
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| "Good collection but........." | 2007-08-10 |
| - Reviewed By dwellwood |
| How on earth can you have a P-Furs greatest hits collection without including Alice's House???? |
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| "Great Music on a Good (Albeit Flawed) Compilation" | 2006-12-05 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1TI60NGQSD762 |
The Psychedelic Furs came out of the echoey soundscapes of post-punk and later ascendended into new wave stratosphere. This collection traces their career's steps: from their Bowie/Roxy Music begginings to the consolidation of their idiosyncratic sound to their hollow pop days and to their "redemption."
The first few tracks are exemplary of their earliest output. "Sister Europe" could've been on any late-70s Bowie album. Heck, Richard Butler even sounds just like Bowie on this song! The track's production, courtesy of Steve Liliwhite, is of the gloomiest and most reverb-rich sort. Again, think Berlin-era Bowie. "Mr. Jones [Single Version]" is a brash number, punkish-almost, and grounded on an immensely catchy riff. "Dumb Waiters" is the kind of track that reveals a Roxy Music fixation. It uses a sax riff that's at the forefront of the mix, and its atonal repetition keenly invokes a spaced-out atmosphere. "Pretty in Pink," sadly, isn't the poppy film version. This one is a bit more jagged, but it's not the best known one. Alas, the film's fans will be more than disappointed at the compiler's choice.
Tracks 5-10 see the development of a more "80s" sound. The Furs manage to create some truly outstanding bits of music during this phase of their career. Again, the atmosphere that these songs create are amazing. Butler's vocals also act as their own instrument. Pop genius in the context of swirling soundscapes? Oh yeah. This is their zenith, and every selection from this era is a winner.
11-12 come from the much-maligned "Midnight to Midnight" album. The production on that album, rather than being multilayered or atmospheric, feels hollow and fleeting. The liner notes show how the band disdains that effort as overproduced and quickly made. And yet, a song like "Heartbreak Beat" has the sort of catchy longevity that belies its origins. If there's a chorus that'll be stuck in your head for days, it will be this one.
Track 13 comes from a late-80s compilation, and its a delightfully zonky track that revels in its own jangly ephemeral state. It shows the band backing away from the sound on "Midnight to Midnight."
We don't get anything from 1989's "Book of Days" album. Too uncommercial, perhaps?
Next, we get three tracks from the band's 1991 album. The songs work well, but they arent't as memorable as their early 80s classics. At the same time, however, they have more lasting value than lots of the tunes on the slick "Midnight to Midnight." The production values are not as well-honed as that seen on prior efforts, but that's okay. To me, these tracks are nice coalescing of stages.
Lastly, we get a live track that, ironically, ends with the drums from "Sister Europe" (this set's first track).
So, why 4 stars rather than 5? First, I think we get too many tracks from their 1991 album and not enough from their debut. Where's "We Love You" or "India"? You can't short-change the band's post-punk start. Next, the whole "Pretty in Pink" thing still sort of miffs me. Lastly, the live track didn't really do it for me. The compilers could've nixed that and put in a better album track. The CD is about an hour and 16 minutes long. Had they taken out the live track, we might've had room for two decent songs (maybe something from "Book of Days"?).
All in all, the music here is fantastic. It clearly displays the evolution of a band, and the results of the band's changes are riveting fun. Despite a few structural flaws, this set does it job quite admirably. Any fan of 80s music should own this. Ditto for post-punk fans. Bowie or Roxy Music afficcionados should also consider this gem. Heck, everyone should invest in this hearty gem! |
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 "A Pleasant Walk Into The '80s But Beware The Cliches" | 2006-05-25 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2IZPQY17M81CZ |
In the interest of full disclosure, I must state the following for the potential buyer:
1) My first contact with the Furs was hearing "Love My Way" as part of the soundtrack to the movie "Valley Girl" -- the movie designed to showcase Nicholas Cage and his approach to grooming (the V-shaped chest hair) and make some money from the movement spawned by the Frank Zappa song of the same name. If memory serves, I think Nick's character (Randy) says something like "that new wave stuff is gutless!". I agreed with Nick then.
2) My musical tastes at the time were a leather-and-denim fantasy (e.g. Priest, Iron Maiden, etc.) so I shunned the artsy stuff; this record is my first attempt to mine the music I missed.
Greatest hits records, while a useful and sometimes necessary distillation of an artist's career, do present certain problems, one of which is the discovery of oft-repeated musical technique that might have otherwise remained hidden. So what was a hook used sparingly over several albums becomes a cliche once the more popular or noteworthy songs converge to a single platter.
So it seems with the Furs. The intros especially fall into either the saxophone or a slow keyboard melody, both of which were perfected (a nice way to say overused) by more mainstream 80s artists, such as Madonna or Huey Lewis. Of course, the 90s were SO much better, switching to violin sounds (e.g. Smashing Pumpkins) or tribal drums. Wonder if grunge will be as retro-hip in 2018 as 80s art-pop is today?
In fairness, I still enjoy "Love My Way", and Mr. Butler's vocals in general. "President Gas" was a nice (and once again timely) surprise.
So in sum, if you like(d) the Furs, go ahead and buy. If you're doing some 80s music mining, something from The Cure, Devo, or B-52s might be a better first choice. The Furs' style is a bit too niche, and the music is too narrow and dated. |
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| "All That Money Wants" | 2006-02-11 |
| - Reviewed By stercaland |
It's a given that 2-disc compilations cost more than a single disc package, but The Psychedelic Furs are deserving of a double disc "hits" collection (***Note*** "Should God Forget" is a double set, but includes many live tracks, alternate takes, and lesser known tracks). If the executives at the helm felt this was too cost prohibitive, an alternative strategy the record label could have employed would be to release a single disc compliation for the casual listener and a more comprehensive double set for the more serious listener. This has been done before: see David Bowie's "Best of Bowie" for example.
Having said this, "Greatest Hits" does a decent job of covering some of the best from roughly 12 years of The Furs' offerings. Of course the obligatory hits like "Pretty in Pink" and "The Ghost in You" are included, but I was disappointed to see that nothing from "Book of Days" was found herein. Instead, the final Furs album, "World Outside," is given precendence. From "World Outside" are included "Sometimes," "Until She Comes," and "There's a World Outside." These are all great choices, but it sure would have been great to at least have "Should God Forget" from "Book of Days." This seems like a no brainer to me.
The previous hits package, 1989's "All of This and Nothing," featured the stellar "No Easy Street" as well as "Imitation of Christ","Highwire Days," "She is Mine," and the title track. All of these are sorely lacking from "Greatest Hits." "Greatest Hits," however, provides such gems as "Mr. Jones," "Here Come Cowboys," and "Heartbeat" that were dubiously left off of the former.
To sum it all up, "Greatest Hits" is a pretty decent collection of the band's finer moments, but it is by no means wholly representative. I'd recommend, of course, buying their entire collection, but I realize this takes time and money. I would suggest buying "All of This and Nothing" to complement "Greatest Hits," especially since it usually can be had for less than $5. There's no doubt that many of the tracks will be redundant, but each collection features several that the other lacks. |
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| "Psychedelic Furs Greatest Hits" | 2005-10-12 |
| - Reviewed By User: A25W0403OC30JH |
| If your a fan of the early 80's music scene than this is a must have album for your collection. Two Thumbs Up! |
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