Andromeda Heights

Andromeda Heights Artist: Prefab Sprout
Label: Sbme Import
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
EAN: 5099748729729
ASIN: B000006ZIQ


Release Date: 2000-03-09

Andromeda Heights


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Tracks:

  1. Electric Guitars
  2. Prisoner of the Past
  3. Mystery of Love
  4. Life's a Miracle
  5. Anne Marie
  6. Whoever You Are
  7. Steal Your Thunder
  8. Avenue of Stars
  9. Swans
  10. Fifth Horseman
  11. Weightless
  12. Andromeda Heights

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  1. The Gunman and Other Stories
  2. From Langley Park to Memphis
  3. I Trawl the Megahertz
  4. Protest Songs
  5. Swoon

Album Description

Available again at a lower price. 1997 album featuring the singles 'A Prisoner Of The Past' & 'Electric Guitars'. 12 tracks total, all in the accessible pop vein that made them so popular in the '80s. Standard jewel case.

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Where has the Paddy we know and love gone? I think I know..........2006-09-26

I agree with other fans (they have to be fans in order to seek this hard to find work out - especially in the U.S.) that this is at the very least a step sideways, if not backwards, for Mr. McAloon and the Sprouts. But there is hope - I believe the spirit of our friend has been channeled by none other than - SCRITTI POLITTI! I am not even sure if I a spelling that right, but this band (which is really German expatriate Green Gartside) is sounding eerily like I imagined Prefab Sprout would on his newest album White Bread Black Beer. There are moments I swear I hear Paddy's vocals affectionately addressing American culture with wit and flair.

I highly recommend this album to anyone who misses the best of Prefab, and who is equally frustrated by their most recent output

4 out of 5 stars Good songs, so-so production.......2003-08-23

I think most of the songwriting on this album is on par with their (or really his) earlier albums. The production is rather glossy in a From Langley Park kind of way and that is alright with me. The real problem is that most instruments (perhaps even all) comes from samplers and such in Paddy's home studio. You can here when guitars, strings and drums are programmed rather than played and I feel that the album would had been a lot better if recorded with musicians. If you don't listen too close to the sounds, it's still very good music.

2 out of 5 stars Hmmmmm..........2002-05-23

This is a tough one. We Prefab Sprout fans had to wait 6 painful, lonely, long years before we got to hear the follow-up to their brilliant "Jordan: the Comeback". "Jordan" took us out of the 80s, capping off a string of amazing albums that represented a total embarrassment of the riches for Prefab. "Swoon", "Steve McQueen", "Protest Songs", the comparably weak but still good "Langley Park", and "Jordan" were all thoroughly brilliant, highly melodic, mesmerizing collections of soul/jazz inspired new wave-pop. Each album bursts at the seams with infectious, gossamer, heartfelt pop gems, and it seemed as if songwriter/vocalist Paddy McCloon could do no wrong. Each album seemed impossible to top, but he succeeded in at least maintaining a highly consistent sense of quality throughout. But, after Jordan, we were suddenly left with 6 years of dead silence.

I think many of us suspected, or at least hoped, that Paddy was using all this time to create his masterpiece. The album that would actually surpass the already unsurpassable genuis established on preceding efforts. But then some of us lost hope; assumed he'd thrown in the towel, or feared the band had unceremoniously vanished into the same obscurity other likeminded 80s bands suffered. But seemingly out of nowhere, Paddy came out with this, an album that scarcely resembles Prefab's past work.

My feelings on this one are bittersweet. Interestingly, the production and overall feel of "Andromeda Heights" sound as if Paddy was completely oblivious to mid to late 90s recording trends in the independent world. Not that that's a bad thing at all, but it's kind of new for Prefab. You see, the only thing that ever hurt Prefab's 80s stuff was some of the unforgiveably 80s production flourishes, which dates the stuff a bit, but the sounds did reflect the times. But, whereas mid-90s contemporaries like the High Llamas, Stereolab, and Aluminum Group were reaching back in time to analog synths, Farfisa organs, and Bacharach/Brian Wilson/70s AM radio horn/string sections, Paddy took a different, and altogether more VH-1 route with "Andromeda": this one suffers from an overwhelmingly slick, glossy production, and we're talking Elton John, Disney soundtrack slick. In short, this implies that Paddy is not even attempting to target the indie/college kids, but rather the kind of people who cried when they heard Elton John's "Candle in the Wind".

The arrangements often involve an orchestra with a lot of annoying X-Files sounding keyboards, and winds up feeling rather cinematic. The songs no longer have that snappy pep to 'em, that tension brewing right beneath the surface, (partly due to the replacement of Prefab drummer Neil Conti), and instead tend towards a very languid, spacey feel. Sometimes this works well, but over the course of the entire disc, it proves rather numbing.

The songs themselves are hit and miss. "Electric Guitars", "Four Horsemen", and "Weightless" are really the only songs to reflect Paddy's tried and true, spot-on knack for infectious, effortlessly brilliant, pop genius. Other songs, like "Steal Your Thunder", "Whoever you are", and "Prisoner of the Past" are okay, but really pale when compared to older classics like "Cruel" or "Looking for Atlantis". The rest of the album comes across rather dull and uninspired, as well as irreparably damaged by the gross, icky, sterile production.

Adding insult to injury, most of the lyrics are embarrassingly sappy, filled with god-awful, Hallmark, sentimental dross that would make any "Precious Moments" collecting simpleton feel warm and fuzzy. I'm sure this reflects Paddy's having settled down into middle-age and shedding his youthful angst, but settling down never got the better of Mark E. Smith or Cathal Coughlan! This is inexcusable! The only lyrics that even approach perversity are in "Ann Marie", about a guy who's obsessed with a female friend who's getting married to another man.

I don't know... If you're a hardcore Prefab diehard like myself, you'll find a few songs on here that make it worth keeping. But, it's truly disapointing to hear Paddy lose the edge that made his work in the 80s stand so far ahead of the pack. With "Andromeda Heights", he's apparently shifted his target audience to bored, middle-aged, suburban housewives, and it's making me feel kind of alienated. Someone, please help! It's only appropriate to mention Cathal Coughlan's mantra of "keep music DANGEROUS!".

4 out of 5 stars There is only one Prefab ..........2001-06-15

4 days before the release of their next album, I am hooked on this album - one friend reminded me of how good this band was and is.

Steve McQueen and Jordan are 2 superb CDs and this, more tranqil, album is excellent for those of us growing older and getting into more jazz based music!

Let's keep our fingers crossed for the next one...

5 out of 5 stars Not Jordan: The Comeback, but what is?.......2000-12-13

Perhaps the only thing this CD has going against it is that it will always be compared the the Sprouts preceding album, Jordan: The Comeback. That album stands as one of the greatest pop music recordings of all time. Andromeda Heights is merely a wonderful disc.

The mood here is mellow. The use of saxes could almost qualify some songs for play on smooth jazz radio stations. However, we still have the wonderful wordplay and vocals of Paddy McAloon. On previous releases, Paddy's lyrical themes would include everything from love to the plight of refugees to the meaning of life to...What is Green Isaac? Here the theme is LOVE. So, while there is less breadth in his scope, he mines the theme of love with incredible depth.

Music Album:

  1. Beautiful Collision ~ Bic Runga
  2. History of Rock 1-10 ~ Various Artists
  3. Back Talk/Rocket Roll ~ The Rockets
  4. Break Up Songs ~ Various Artists
  5. Tracks on Wax 4 ~ Dave Edmunds
  6. Women in Prison ~ Evie Sands
  7. Beatles Tapes, Vol. 6: Rock and Religion 1966 ~ The Beatles
  8. I Love Music 1970-1974: Teenage Rampage ~ Various Artists
  9. The Cansecos ~ The Cansecos
  10. Ice Grillz ~ Cold World

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

In a Silent Way ~ Miles Davis

The Famous Castle Jazz Band Plays "The Five Pennies" ~ The Famous Castle Jazz Band

King Jazz, Vol. 2 ~ Mezz Mezzrow

Be Bop: Best of the Bird ~ Charlie Parker

Patterns in Jazz ~ Gil Melle

Phil Woods Quartet, Live, Vol. 1 ~ Phil Woods Quartet

Asi Mit Niwoh ~ Juergen Zeltinger

Blues in the Gutter ~ Dusko Gojkovich

Qualquer Cancao: A Musica De Chico Buarq ~ Toninho Horta, Carlos Fernando

Get Bach! ...Vivaldi, Pachelbel, Mozart & Beethoven