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Maligned albums: which do you rate?
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lennbob
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Re: Maligned albums: which do you rate?
Feb 20, 2010, 17:28
• The Style Council - Confessions of a Pop Group
• The Style Council - The Cost of Loving
The last two Style Council albums to be released while they were still active are uneven affairs, but were (and are) both underrated. The Cost of Loving is perhaps best known for that orange cover, "It Didn't Matter", and Weller's first single to miss the top 40 after a long run of hits, "Waiting". The only real missteps are "Right To Go" (which would actually be pretty good if you could remove the "rappin" by The Dynamic Three, which dates the thing horribly) and the title track (which appeared in far superior re-recorded form on the subsequent "Wanted" single). The "Piano Paintings" half of Confessions of a Pop Group was perhaps too ambitious for the day (1980s music had already begun its stylistic decline), but still contained a fine trio of opening songs in "It's A Very Deep Sea", "The Story of Someone's Shoe", and "Changing of the Guard"; while the more pop-oriented "Confessions of a Pop-Group" half was, well, poppy and danceable and very listenable. In a way, Confessions of a Pop Group was almost a return to form, but with a different set of stylistic variations to those found on Café Bleu.

• Scritti Politti - Anomie & Bohnomie
I don't recall what the reviews had to say about this album, but I know that most Scritti Politti fans don't seem to like it very much because of the prominence of rap in its mix. Personally, this may be my favorite Scritti Politti album.

• Boz Scaggs - Down Two Then Left
Scaggs' follow-up to Silk Degrees didn't do very well. "Hard Times" was a minor hit, but the album pretty much sank without a trace.

• Japan - Adolescent Sex
• David Sylvian & Robert Fripp - The First Day
These albums are mostly held in disregard by David Sylvian himself, though many of his following don't rate The First Day very highly.


• Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Liverpool
This was the Difficult Second Album, where the hits mostly dried up. The change in producers from Trevor Horn to Stephen Lipson seemed to indicate that Frankie now had second-tier status at ZTT. The overall mood seemed to be a bit darker, the album was shorter, and the singles were less obvious (and less successful). Yet it was a more consistent album than Welcome to the Pleasuredome, which was basically one LP of hits with one LP of filler held together by all the hype and controversy that surrounded the first couple of singles.
In reply to:
Maligned albums: which do you rate? (Fitter Stoke)		 Replies:
Re: Maligned albums: which do you rate? (Squid Tempest)
Re: Maligned albums: which do you rate? (keith a)
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