{"id":41657,"date":"2009-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/mosaic\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:12","slug":"mosaic","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/mosaic\/","title":{"rendered":"Mosaic"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admit, things have been quiet around UCAMA (Unfairly Critically Abused Musical Artists) HQ over the past year or so. (For more information about UCAMA, check out my review of Songs From The Seventies<\/i> by Barry Manilow here<\/a>.) I\u2019ve been either not writing or writing in such a productive fashion that nothing old ever gets reviewed. But… I admit it, I feel like a challenge.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So \u2013 I\u2019m going to defend one of the most overplayed songs of the \u201880s and the album that spawned it. It\u2019s time to take a closer look at Wang Chung\u2019s 1986 release, Mosaic<\/i>, and the demon-song it spawned: \u201cEverybody Have Fun Tonight.\u201d<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Anyone who knows anything about Wang Chung \u2013 and there\u00a0 are a few of us, though just a few \u2013 knows that they were a progressive pop band masquerading as synthesizer fluff. Songs like \u201cDance Hall Days\u201d and, yes, \u201cEHFT\u201d were exceptions rather than the rule; there was substance behind the glitz that most people never heard, usually slickly but competently produced and arranged. The fact is, Wang Chung has talent. The duet of Nick Feldman and Jack Hues (on Mosaic<\/i> aided and abetted by producer and guest third member Peter Wolf) could turn out four minutes of danceable music that nevertheless had a brain.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Putting aside \u201cEHFT\u201d for a moment \u2013 and yes, we\u2019ll get back to it \u2013 there are some great songs on Mosaic<\/i>. The second single, \u201cLet\u2019s Go,\u201d was synth-pop\u2019s answer to the B-52s\u2019 \u201cRoam,\u201d and it\u2019s just as infectious. \u201cHypnotize Me\u201d is impeccably written and performed pop. On songs like \u201cThe Flat Horizon\u201d and \u201cThe World In Which We Live,\u201d the tone turns more serious, taking on heavier subject matter like obsession and human behavior that would eventually lead to more introspective albums like \u201cTo Live And Die In L.A.\u201d and \u201cWarmer Side Of Cool.\u201d Mosaic<\/i> is a pastiche of tightly woven, punchy songs, and almost all of them work.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

There are two exceptions. One is \u201cBetrayal;\u201d the execution falters on this slower song, and it limps home on a raft of clich\u00e9s. The other…<\/o:p><\/p>\n

You know, twenty-three years later, \u201cEverybody Have Fun Tonight\u201d is kinda… cool. Maybe I\u2019m being nostalgic. Maybe I\u2019m being a moron. But damn it, what ever happened to fun for the sake of fun? And the album version works better; it leaves in a couple of weird instrumental breaks that make the song veer closer to parody or irony.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Mosaic<\/i> gets the UCAMA seal of approval. It\u2019s a good release that has been unjustly maligned. Get over your hipster self and check it out.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":30027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6038],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41657","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-wang-chung","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41657"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}