There are two reasons to make a greatest hits record. Reason number one is to compile the best of an artist\u2019s recorded catalogue into a quick, easily accessible overview of his or her or their career. This provides the interested consumer with a Cliffs Notes-style survey of an artist\u2019s music that will presumably spur said consumer to purchase other albums. This is good. The second reason is to make a quick buck. This is bad.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, Retrospectacle<\/i> falls under the first definition.<\/p>\n
Thomas Dolby, like a lot of the synth-pop icons of the mid-\u201880s, is remembered primarily for one song \u2013 the omnipresent played-to-death \u201cShe Blinded Me With Science.\u201d While it may, objectively viewed, be a good song, it serves only as necrohippoflagellation. It and Wang Chung\u2019s \u201cEverybody Wang Chung Tonight\u201d need about ten years of enforced silence to be listenable again. That said, there are fifteen other tracks on Retrospectacle<\/i>, and a lot of them are damned fine songs.<\/p>\n
Dolby only recorded six albums in his career, and two of them are soundtracks and not represented here. Retrospectacle<\/i> reflects the entire Dolby oeuvre, from the early Euro pop of \u201cEuropa And The Pirate Twins\u201d and \u201cUrges\u201d to his more eclectic work like \u201cPulp Culture\u201d and \u201cClose But No Cigar.\u201d It illustrates Dolby as an artist ahead of his time, someone who was willing to play with various ideas and musical styles for the sake of playing with them. He also liked playing with unexpected musical flourishes \u2013 trombone on \u201cHyperactive\u201d (which is infectious to the point of needing to be quarantined by the CDC), Hungarian arias on \u201cBudapest By Blimp,\u201d Eddie Van Halen on \u201cClose But No Cigar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0If there is a single quality that exemplifies Dolby\u2019s music, it\u2019s that he kept moving on to the next thing that interested him. This resulted in songs that didn\u2019t work so well \u2013 I can\u2019t say I\u2019m a fan of \u201cScreen Kiss\u201d or \u201cCruel\u201d \u2013 and songs that are flat-out freakin\u2019 amazing. In the latter category, we have \u201cI Love You Goodbye,\u201d a mix of Dolby\u2019s keyboard pop and Cajun music. (Yes, that is what I said \u2013 Michael Doucet from Beausoliel played fiddle on the track). \u201cI Love You Goodbye\u201d is one of the rare combinations of incisive lyrics and brilliant musicianship that makes me swoon. Metaphorically speaking, that is.<\/p>\n
If you have any liking for keyboard pop, musical experimentation, or just plain eclectic weirdness, wander out and get yourself a copy of Retrospectacle<\/i>. You won\u2019t be disappointed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":30472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8635],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42136","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-thomas-dolby","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42136","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=42136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42136"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}