Various Artists - '12”/80s/Vol. 2' (Family) Released 27/06/05

Longevity can be an admirable trait.  Like drunk sex, beer garden evenings and Match of the Day, it can be great, a many splendoured thing.  But, the 80’s have been here for over 25 years now.  Kick-started on the stroke of midnight, New Years Eve 1979, the longest decade know to man has been in and out of Vogue more often than Kate Moss.  So, do we really need another reminder of the decade that brought us Bananarama, Bros and Rick Astley?

Well, if this is the last offering from the decade, forever ever, forever ever, then yes.  Spread over 35 tracks and 3 CD’s, it spans the rise of Simple Minds, Echo and the Bunnymen and Frankie goes to Hollywood in style.  Most of the tracks here are faithfully taken from the 12” originals, with some chunkier and house heavy rerubs thrown in for good measure. 

It’s also an understated album, a term not normally associated with the poodle perm decade.  Less obvious tracks from Duran Duran, Tears for Fears and Yello make you feel like you’re actually discovering something new, rather than the ubiquitous pap that commercial compilations try to ram down your throat.  It’s almost as if, and whisper this, it’s been lovingly complied by someone actually truly, madly, deeply in love with the 80’s. 

There are also some belting classics here.  Heaven 17’s ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ thumps and bumps its way out of the speakers and into your frantically waving finger of funk while the INXS’ ‘Need you tonight’ remix is filtered sax on legs.  And, stepping in at over 180 minutes there truly is something for everyone.  If you want to indulge your guilty pleasures or simply want an album to once and all celebrate the 80’s, and I mean once and for all, as in no more, nada, zilch, finito, then this is the one to do it.  All together now…”When two tribes go to war, four stars at Gigwise is what you’re gonna score, when two tribes go to war…”