From: thomas@impulse.acuson.com (Chris Thomas)
Subject: Prefab Sprout, 'A Life of Surprises'
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1992 00:54:36 GMT
Followup-To: rec.music.misc


PREFAB SPROUT - "The Best of Prefab Sprout: A Life of Surprises"
(Kitchenware/Columbia UK)

Back in 1984, I was browsing a copy of "Rolling Stone" (back when it
was cool to be doing so), and I came across a feature on "10 up-and-
coming bands to watch for".  The The was in there, and so was a quirky
quartet from Newcastle, England, called Prefab Sprout.  "Rolling Stone"
pigeonholed them as the 80s answer to Steely Dan and predicted that
they'd go far.

Prefab Sprout have certainly gone far, even if they never got the
popular success that they so richly deserved.  After five albums, and
dating back ten years from the group's first independent-label single
("Lions in My Own Garden", a collector's item), Paddy McAloon and the
rest of the Sprouts have finally released a "best of" collection.

The selection of the 16 songs on the album is somewhat unusual and
perhaps revealing in its own right:

	The King of Rock 'n' Roll (LP)
	When Love Breaks Down (SM)
	The Sound of Crying (new)
	Faron Young (SM) (called "Faron" in US)
	Carnival 2000 (J)
	Goodbye Lucille #1 (Johnny Johnny) (SM)
	I Remember That (LP)
	Cruel (S)
	Cars and Girls (LP)
	We Let the Starts Go (J)
	Life of Surprises (PS)
	Appetite (SM)
	If You Don't Love Me (new)
	Wild Horses (J)
	Hey Manhattan! (LP)
	All the World Loves Lovers (J, see review)

Key to albums:
	S = Swoon
	PS = Protest Songs
	SM = Steve McQueen (called "Two Wheels Good" in US)
	LP = From Langley Park to Memphis
	J = Jordan, the Comeback

The collection is by no means chronological!  Moreover, the early days
of the group are barely paid lip service here, with just one track off
the much-heralded debut album "Swoon", and just one off "Protest Songs,"
the chronological second album whose release was delayed for nearly
four years (and which never got a US release).

Also, the majority of these songs (9 out of the 16) are from the group's
work with producer Thomas Dolby; it's obviously this sound that got
the Sprouts the most commercial success in the UK (including Dolby's
remix of "When Love Breaks Down", which finally took the song into the
British top 10 and actually got it some airplay on American MTV).

Even the much-maligned "From Langley Park to Memphis" is well represented
here with four songs.  Without much of the filler material that hurt that
album -- thank heavens the disastrous "Golden Calf" is nowhere to be
found! -- these four songs actually hold their own quite well in the
collection, including the backhanded homage to Bruce Springsteen, "Cars
and Girls".

There are "two and a half" new songs on the collection.  "The Sound of
Crying", the current chart single in the UK, represents a natural evolution
of the Sprouts' accessible, melodic, mature sound.  Stephen Lipson produced
that as well as the other new song, "If You Don't Love Me", which is
somewhat more forceful than most of the Sprouts' work; heavily layered
strings and vocals mark a different sound, and possibly hints at things
to come.

The "half" of a new song is a newly-mixed version of "All the World Loves
Lovers," one of the tracks from "Jordan" which got lost in the brilliance
of that album's 19 remarkable songs.  Here, and with some barely perceptible
mixing changes by Lipson, "Lovers" does very well on its own.  It'll be
the second or third single from this album... you heard it here first.

When all is said and done, Prefab Sprout write love songs.  Sometimes 
they're gender-specific, and sometimes they're not; in any case, McAloon's
sheltered upbringing -- still living in the upstairs of his parents' house
in the English countryside during the first years of the band -- has given
him a wealth of experiences, dreams, and opinions that he turns into
exquisitely crafted pieces of music.

McAloon writes in the liner notes, "Ten years of making records may
justify A Best Of, but it's hard to feel nostalgic when you hope that
the best is yet to come.  And who knows?  It's a life of surprises."
A ten-year compilation certainly gives pause and makes one reflect as
well, and the goose-bump quotient still runs as high as ever.

Were the 14 old songs that were selected special in any way?  Could a
CD shuffler have produced a compilation that was equally amazing?  If
anything, some of the most thrilling singular "moments" from the Sprouts'
career are missing (take "The Ice Maiden" from "Jordan", for instance),
and it's only because of my own personal memories of where I was and who
I was at each stage in the band's history that I end up finding "A Life
of Surprises" anything less than perfect.

Ratings:  The goose bump scale (0 to 10, with 10 best) measures how often
the music made my skin tingle and my mind take notice.

	Prefab Sprout, "A Life of Surprises"	9.5 goose bumps

--
Chris Thomas						(415) 694-5614
S4/7 b g+ l y+ z+ n+ o+ x-/+ a++ u v-/+ j++          thomas@acuson.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.reviews,rec.music.misc