New Heaven 17 - Disappointed... - Opinon by Ray Ciscon
I picked up the new, at least for us Americans, Heaven 17 CD, "Bigger Than America" a few weeks ago.... and I've got to say... I'm disappointed.
After the initial excitment of a NEW Heaven 17 release, with neat packaging BTW, wore off, I discovered that the songs are second rate at best.
After several plays all the way through, I found not a single memorable track. No hooks. I can't remember a single thing about the music.
I thought that maybe I was missing something... so I checked out the lyric sheet, included and tried the old sing-along deal... thinking that would help... but I simply became more annoyed....
More than 10-years have gone by, and Heaven 17 still think that America is the bad guy.
Back in the early 80's, it was the fun thing to pick on us Americans. Just think about the lyrics from 'We don't need that fascist groove thing'.... I'm paraphrasing, but it went something about 'democrats are out of power, across that big-wide ocean. Leaving the President-elect, fascist power in motion'.. this was their not so subtle statement that Ronald Reagan had defeated Jimmy Carter, and that the fascists were in power here in the USA.... WWIII would be starting any time now...
Well I could ignore the inane, and uninformed political opinions as long as the music was good. The music on 'We don't need that fascist groove thing' was great, but it seems that Heaven 17 haven't grown politically as artists, and I'm afraid that their music just doesn't overpower the politics.
Heaven 17'ers, work harder on the music, and don't worry about the lyrics... they're secondary to synthpop anyway...
Just my opinion....
Ray Ciscon
And the recations in the usenet :
Matt Fitch mfitch4846@aol.com
I must say I'm quite surprised at this. I LOVED IT!!!!!!! Sure it's no Penthouse... but it would be very unrealistic to be. You must admit it's worlds away from Teddy Bear.., though. Particular standout tracks for me were:
Dive
Another Big Idea
An Electronic Prayer
and the German version of Designing Heaven.
For some reason I prefer this to the English one, though I don't speak any German, barring the odd word here and there. I did have a few misgivings about it when I saw it was through Cleopatra as was the new-sound InSoc which I was not particularly fond of.
-Matt