Eight-X, (13)

Eight-X, yeah right more nostalgia and i start right off with a Broken Heart, big sound, love can be such a pain, seriously i enjoyed ripping this one hadnt heard it for almost 3 decades, still some great tracks on it. Last week a commenter asked for Kissing The Pink, well i would have come to it but why wait to comply with a wish for that rare Big Man Restless clubmix, anyway the band should have done better, but never really managed to really bubble up and above. Something that had come naturally to my last artist today. He had some big advantages..being tall and blond and smart, if that wasn' t enough he has a beautiful voice aswell...yes thats one part of the story, his stagefright kept him from performing and later expanded to a dislike with the marketing-music industry, after Cupid And Psyche 85, to date he released just 3 albums, but then Wales has such a beautiful countryside..

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The Babys - Broken Heart (77 ^ 244mb)

The Babys consisted of vocalist/bassist John Waite, guitarist Wally Stocker, former Spontaneous Combustion and Strider drummer Tony Brock, and keyboardist/guitarist Mike Corby, who was replaced by Jonathan Cain in 1978; bassist Ricky Phillips also joined later on. Overshadowed by the punk and new wave movement in their native U.K., the band concentrated on the American market and did score two Top 20 singles with "Isn't It Time" and "Every Time I Think of You." After a rather meager start with their second album the band found a sympathetic producer this time out in Ron Nevison.He gives the band a sharp, precise recording that fully brings out their power while balancing out the heavier elements of their sound with sophisticated orchestrations that broaden their sound into a cinematic realm. The Babys live up to this ambitious style of production by stepping up to the plate with a collection of songs that are tight, catchy, and full of rock & roll conviction. The end result is an album that is a quantum leap forward from their first album in every way. Broken Heart is undoubtedly the crown jewel in the Babys' catalog and a worthwhile listen for any fan of big-production AOR rock ( adult orientated rock ? how about those adolescent girls ?).

1978 was a difficult year of transition for the Babys: The group parted ways with founding member Michael Corby during sessions for their new album, and the remaining members finished the album only to have their record company reject it in its initial form. The final result Head First surpassed "Broken Neart" in the quality of the cover , but the album was a mish mash and rather poor compared to it's grand predecessor. After 1980's Union Jacks, the Babys' future didn't look so bright anymore and the group disbanded in 1981. A shoddy anthology was released on cd in 89 but why they havent released Broken Heart , beats me, it could do with a shiny remaster. Well you can try it here , don't be put off by that cheesy cover, im sure they would have posed naked with their dicks in a sock if the man from the record company had told them.



01 - Wrong Or Right (3:25)
02 - Give Me Your Love (3:33)
03 - Isn't It Time (4:00)
04 - And If You Could See Me Fly (2:50)
05 - The Golden Mile (4:55)
06 - Broken Heart (3:01)
07 - I'm Falling (3:53)
08 - Rescue Me (3:49)
09 - Silver Dreams (2:59)
10 - A Piece Of The Action (4:24)
--Xs--
11 - Everytime i Think Of You (4:01)

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Kissing The Pink - Naked ( 83 Flac 411mb)

Kissing the Pink was formed in 1980 at the Royal College of Music in London, England. All of the members lived together in the same house in North London. Comprised of Nick Whitecross (vocals, guitars), Jon Kingsley Hall (keyboards, vocals), Peter Barnett (bass, violin, vocals), Simon Aldridge (guitars, vocals), Stephen Cusack (drums, vocals), George Stewart (keyboards, vocals), and Josephine Wells (saxophone, vocals). Their first single was "Don't Hide in the Shadows", made with Martin Hannett, but it wasn't until they signed with Magnet Records that they began to get any airplay. They recorded their first album in AIR studios with producer Colin Thurston, Kissing the Pink had wanted Brian Eno to produce the album but Magnet thought Thurston would make a more commercial impact. Kissing the Pink released their first album, Naked, in 1983.
The album, Naked, didn't sell a lot of copies but was a favourite with the college crowd, the sheer variety of songs on the album made the album too hard to classify, and thus it was largely ignored.

The self produced and much more consistant follow-up album , What Noise, didn't make much of a splash either, so by 1986 they were at the mercy of their label. Kissing the Pink shortened their name to KTP and recorded their most successful LP, Certain Things Are Likely. More commercial than any of their previous efforts, Certain Things Are Likely was Kissing the Pink's concession to their label Magnet's demand for a chart smash. The hits never really came, except that the title track reached number one on the Billboard dance charts; moreover, the single "One Step" went to number one in Italy. In 1988, KTP became Kissing the Pink once again. The group released Sugarland in 1993. After that, the band cut their roster to Whitecross, Hall, and Stewart, doing mainly production work for other artists.



01 - The Last Film (3:24)
02 - Frightened In France (3:25)
03 - Watching Their Eyes (3:14)
04 - Love Lasts Forever (5:33)
05 - All For You (3:52)
06 - The Last Film (Hymn Version) (3:04)
07 - Big Man Restless (3:44)
08 - Desert Song (3:21)
09 - Broken Body (2:41)
10 - Maybe This Day (3:34)
11 - In Awe Of Industry (3:14)
12 - Mr. Blunt (2:55)
Kissing The Pink
13 - Watching Their Eyes 3:15
14 - Maybe This Day 3:37
15 - Big Man Restless 6:09
16 - Love Lasts Forever (7" Mix) 3:37
17 - We Are Your Family 5:55

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Scritti Politti - Cupid and Psyche (85 Flac 376mb)

Few figures in pop music can claim Gartside's distinctive credentials: an artist who began in London's subcutaneous underground in the late '70s but ultimately rose to the top of the U.K. pop charts, a serious devotee of linguistic structuralism who can hold his own in a conversation with his friend, arch deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, and a handsome, dreamy-eyed gentleman who has, in the opinion of one critic, "a voice that's eternally 14 years old" yet nonetheless stands six foot six. Through the Young Communist League he met future Scritti Politti bassist Nial Jinks, at Leeds Art College he made the acquaintance of Scritti's future drummer, Tom Morley. In June 1978 Gartside and Morley dropped out of school and took up a flat in London, and Gartside invited Jinks to come out and join them.

At this stage, Scritti Politti's sound was scrappy, taut, and forthrightly experimental in style, utilizing abrupt changes, rhythmic displacements, and gritty and discordant harmonies tempered by Gartside's sweet vocalizing of impenetrably obscure lyrics, vaguely political in sense but temporal and abstract in meaning. Rough Trade released the 12" EP 4 A-Sides and a four-track single of Scritti Politti's second Peel Session. The band was then added to a U.K. tour featuring Gang of Four and Joy Division, but Gartside was consumed by stage fright and anxiety, leading to his first heart attack at age 23. After completing the tour, Gartside decided to take a year off from music and returned to South Wales to refresh himself.

When Gartside returned, it was a with a new Scritti Politti sound, a demo track, "The Sweetest Girl," was issued on a giveaway cassette with an issue of NME, and it soon proved extremely popular in England. While the finished single of "The Sweetest Girl" did not appear for several months, sapping some of the momentum gained by the pre-release, the follow-up album, Songs to Remember, was issued to considerable critical acclaim in September 1981. The album made it to number one on the U.K. independent album chart and number six on the main U.K. pop chart. By this time, however, the band had fallen apart, and the last original member, drummer Tom Morley, departed that November.

Gartside spent some time in New York, and met David Gamson, who in turn introduced him to the drummer from Material, Fred Maher. They began to record as Scritti Politti in 1983 in sessions produced by Nile Rodgers, but Gartside decided, rightly, that Rough Trade didn't have the kind of budget that could support the type of pop music that he was then interested in pursuing. With Gartside and Rough Trade parting ways, the Rodgers-produced sessions never saw the light of day. After negotiating with various labels, he finally settled on an offer made by Virgin. Then Gartside, Gamson, and Maher began slowly recording the group of singles that ultimately made up Cupid & Psyche 85.

Cupid & Psyche 85, released in June of 1985, was a landmark album in many respects. No prior pop album had integrated the techniques of sampling and sequencing to such a great degree, and the technology of that time was both expensive to use and barely up to the task Scritti Politti demanded of it. Gartside's typically high-flown verbiage was as evident here as anywhere, but you didn't need to understand what he sang in order to enjoy the music. Certain songs are dialogues between Gartside and a female singer; as such, "A Little Knowledge" is a rare pop song that retains the characteristics of a mini-tragedy. Likewise, the bonus track of "Flesh and Blood," featuring Jamaican rapper Ann Swinton, sounds remarkably fresh and contemporary 20 years on. But the big hits from Cupid & Psyche 85 were "Wood Beez" and "The Word Girl" in the U.K., and "The Perfect Way" in the U.S., which reached number 11 in the Billboard Hot 100 and got heavy rotation on MTV. Not many albums from smack in the middle of the "Big '80s" can be said to possess the quality of timelessness, but Cupid & Psyche 85 most certainly does.

Scritti Politti returned in 1988 with a new album, Provision, of which the intended hit, "Boom! There She Was," featured the talents of the late Roger Troutman. Provision found favor in the U.K., but had no effect whatsoever in the U.S., and worse, Gartside was personally unhappy with the album. Disgusted with music as a whole, Gartside dropped from sight again, and this time he did so for nearly a decade.
Released in 1999, Anomie & Bonhomie marked Gartside and Scritti Politti's return to music, and it shows that he had by no means lost touch with current trends, working with rappers Mos Def and Jimahl and extending the Scritti Politti compass to include a full-blown hip-hop sound. It was a fine comeback effort, but received only a lukewarm response from the public. White Bread Black Beer, recorded entirely by Gartside, followed seven years later and had the benefit of closely tailing a wave of newfound interest in his career.



01 - The Word Girl (4:24)
02 - Small Talk (3:39)
03 - Absolute (4:25)
04 - A Little Knowledge (5:01)
05 - Don't Work That Hard (3:59)
06 - Perfect Way (4:43)
07 - Lover To Fall (4:12)
08 - Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) (4:48)
09 - Hypnotize (3:34)
10 - Flesh and Blood (5:35)
11 - Absolute (Version) (6:11)
12 - Wood Beez (Version) (5:56)
13 - Hypnotize (Version) (6:35)

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