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Fine Young Cannibals

 
AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:

Fine Young Cannibals

Review

When Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger split from the rest of the English Beat to form General Public, Andy Cox and Dave Steele originally advertised on MTV for a new lead singer for the Beat. When that didn't pan out (although it did work for Wall of Voodoo), Cox and Steele hooked up with the unique and soulful singer Roland Gift and formed the Fine Young Cannibals. Though the trio first hit the mass U.S. consciousness with 1989's electronic dance-pop The Raw and the Cooked, their 1985 debut was a soul-jazz pop charmer that's more low key but every bit as entertaining. Along the lines of early Everything But the Girl (the two groups share a producer, Robin Millar) with a heavier Motown influence, the songs on Fine Young Cannibals are uniformly strong. The singles "Johnny Come Home" (a plea to a runaway that sounds like the Beat's ska stripped down to its tense and obsessive essentials) and "Blue" (one of the more oblique and successful anti-Margaret Thatcher tracks of its era) are terrific, but album tracks like the casually devastating "Funny How Love Is" and the manic "Like a Stranger" (which incongruously ends with a female chorus shrieking "You've been too long in an institution!" repeatedly while Gift tries out his Otis Redding impression) are even better. The album's highlight, though, is a reworking of "Suspicious Minds" (with scarifying backing vocals by Jimmy Somerville) that, while it doesn't replace Elvis' version, certainly takes the song into an interesting new direction. Although often overlooked, especially in the U.S., in the wake of their massively successful follow-up, Fine Young Cannibals is a powerful and satisfying debut. The U.S. CD adds two extended remixes of "Johnny Come Home" and "Suspicious Minds." ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi

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Fine Young Cannibals (album)

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Fine Young Cannibals
Studio album by Fine Young Cannibals
Released December 10, 1985
Recorded 1985
Genre New Wave, soul
Length 34:21
Label I.R.S. Records
Producer Robin Millar
Fine Young Cannibals chronology
Fine Young Cannibals
(1985)
The Raw and the Cooked
(1988)

Fine Young Cannibals is an album released in 1985 by the band of the same name.

The success of their UK #8 debut single "Johnny Come Home" did not continue with the next single, "Blue", which languished at #41 in the UK. The version of "Blue" on the original vinyl LP and cassette was re-mixed for the single release in an attempt to boost its commercial appeal. The re-mix version features additional electronically processed drum and percussion sounds, giving it a sound typical of other 1980s technopop hits. The currently available CD features the re-mix version in place of the original album version.

Track listing

  1. "Johnny Come Home"
  2. "Couldn't Care More"
  3. "Don't Ask Me to Choose"
  4. "Funny How Love Is"
  5. "Suspicious Minds"
  6. "Blue"
  7. "Move to Work"
  8. "On a Promise"
  9. "Time Isn't Kind"
  10. "Like a Stranger"

Note: The album was reissued in 1986 with two additional tracks, remixes of Johnny Come Home (Extended Mix) and Suspicious Minds (Suspicious Mix), following Like A Stranger.

Personnel

with

  • Martin Parry - Drums
  • Graeme Hamilton - Trumpet, Piano on "Time Isn't Kind"
  • Gavin Wright - Violin
  • Saxa - Saxophone on "Funny How Love Is"
  • Beverly, Gloria and Maxine Brown - Backing Vocals on "Like a Stranger"
  • Jimmy Sommerville - Backing Vocals on "Suspicious Minds"
  • Jenny Jones - Drums and Backing Vocals on "Couldn't Care More"

References



 
 

 

Copyrights:

AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums. Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Fine Young Cannibals (album) Read more

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