This Is Not Retro - This Is the Eighties Up to Date

Infobox Album |
Name = This Is Not Retro -
This Is the Eighties Up to Date
Type = compilation
Artist = AA.VV.


Released = 2005
Recorded =
Genre = New wave
Pop rock
Synthpop
Dance
Length =
Label = RememberTheEighties
Producer = various
Reviews = http://remembertheeighties.com
Last album = /
This album = "This Is Not Retro - This Is the Eighties Up to Date"
(2005)
Next album = /|

"This Is Not Retro - This Is the Eighties Up to Date" is a compilation of new and recent material from some of the Eighties' most enduring acts. It is a limited edition, presented in DVD-style packaging, with a 24-page booklet, released in 2005, in UK. Of the 19 tracks totally featured in the collection, 8 are commercially available here for the very first time, while in 8 cases, the related song is interpreted by he/she who was the lead vocalist of the given band at the time.

Two peculiar cases are represented by Peter Cox from Go West, either featuring as solo singer (for the song called "Broken") and as member of the Go West duo (for the tune entitled "All Day All Night"), and by Kajagoogoo (here present with the previously unreleased "Tears"), who feature in a reduced line-up as a trio, but in the meantime have reunited with the other two original members, lead singer Limahl and drummer Jez Strode, and are currently promoting what then became a double A-side single, featuring "Rocket Boy" and "Tears", within some live festivals in Europe, in the complete five-piece line-up, along with other famous tracks of theirs, and jointly with others acts of the decade when they formed, such as, for example, Kim Wilde, as well as other participants in the compilation, such as Howard Jones (whose track "Revolution of the Heart", opens the current collection).

The title of the compilation itself is self-explanatory as for the general sense of the operation, which wants to differentiate itself from other kinds of commercial operations, usually oriented to just reproposing old songs from the Eighties, without offering nothing new to the musical landscape of a decade, which was often criticized and heavily dismissed in the recent past, and lately instead abused in the other direction, especially since when, in 1998, the so-called 'Eighties Revival' started, which saw numerous acts of the time come back to the scenes, often, but not necessarily, obtaining little or no success at all, above all as concerns the try on their part to present new songs, possibly very different, as for musical genre, to that those same acts were mostly famous for.

Track listing

#"Revolution of the Heart" - Howard Jones
#"Tears" - Kajagoogoo (*)
#"Broken" - Peter Cox (Go West)
#"Scar" - Katrina Leskanich (Katrina & The Waves)
#"Close" - The Alarm
#"American Beauty" - Peter Coyle (The Lotus Eaters) (*)
#"Let It All Fall" - T'Pau
#"Pussywhipper" - Sigue Sigue Sputnik (*)
#"Why So Rude" - Neville Staple (The Specials)
#"What Would You Do (Skin)?" - Midge Ure (Ultravox)
#"Age of Unreason" - Spear of Destiny (*)
#"Die Laughing" - Nik Kershaw
#"Little Tears of Love" - Toyah
#"Sleepsong" - Dr. Robert (The Blow Monkeys) (*)
#"This Is Not My World" - Heaven 17 (*)
#"All Day All Night" - Go West
#"So Lonely" - Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet)
#"Blue Was Never My Colour" - Leee John (Imagination) (*)
#"Mi Chica Latina" - Modern Romance (*)

N.B. (*) marks those tracks which are commercially available here for the very first time.

Related pages

*"Gone to the Moon" (forthcoming Kajagoogoo album - within 2008 - including "Tears", commercially available here for the very first time)

External links

* [http://remembertheeighties.com Official Website of RememberTheEighties.com] : Website/label of the compilation.
* [http://idealcopy.american-data.net/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MU-VARIO-THISI-01 The Ideal Copy] : page dedicated to the compilation, with cover art, track listing and product info.