The Collection

Artist: Prefab Sprout
Label: Sony
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording remastered
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 2

UPC: 696998532526
EAN: 0696998532526
ASIN: B000058T7I

Release Date: 2001-02-13

The Collection

Related Categories:

General

| Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Adult Contemporary | Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Dance Pop

| Compilations | Dance & DJ | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
Don't Sing
Couldn't Bear To Be Special
When Love Breaks Down
Faron Young
Appetite
Johnny Johnny
Cars And Girls
The King Of Rock 'N' Roll
Hey Manhattan!
The Golden Calf
Looking For Atlantis
We Let The Stars Go
Carnival 2000
The Sound Of Crying
If You Don't Love Me
Life Of Surprises
A Prisoner Of The Past
Electric Guitars

Tracks:

Cue Fanfare
Cruel
Bonny
Moving The River
Desire As
Horsin' Around
Pearly Gates
'Til The Cows Come Home
Enchanted
I Remember That
Nightingales
Jordan: The Comeback
All The World Loves Lovers
Jesse James Bolero
Doo-Wop In Harlem
Life's A Miracle
Swans
Andromeda Heights
Where The Heart Is

Similar Items:

I Trawl the Megahertz
Style Council - Greatest Hits
Swoon
The Best of Prefab Sprout: A Life of Surprises
Two Wheels Good

Amazon.com

The U.K. punk/new wave explosion of the early 1980s offered up a slate largely clean of both expectations and artistic preconceptions. A few young musicians were brave enough to use it for something other than constructing a new set of clichés, including Newcastle's Paddy McAloon and his band, Prefab Sprout, who became cult faves in the bargain. This generous double-CD set offers up a well-balanced chronicle of McAloon and company's endearingly quirky, ever-literate pop concoctions, dividing its discs between the band's singles (including the privately pressed debut "Lions in My Own Garden") and cuts from a decade's worth of iconoclastic albums. Freely using a delightfully unpredictable palette that included jazz (especially the spare, gorgeous "Couldn't Bear to Be Special"), cabaret, neo-skiffle ("Faron Young"), lounge, and even Broadway--sometimes all in the space of three minutes--Prefab Sprout might well have anticipated much of what became the alt-rock clichés of the '90s, though delivered with a sense of genuine wit and virtually no overweening irony. <I>The Collection</I> is a great way to (re)discover one of the great hidden musical treasures of the '80s. <I>--Jerry McCulley</I>

Customer Reviews:

A great place to start.......2005-02-03

Prefab Sprout, a band that just ages very well. Thomas Dolby's footprints are all over this recording.

While this CD lacks "Wild Horses", it contains just about every song any fan could wish for. Hands down, it beats the Life of Surprises compilation with its inclusions of "Lions in My Own Garden" and other material from Swoon, as well as such gems such as "The Golden Calf" (a personal favorite of mine) off From Langley Park to Memphis as well as the wonderful "Bonny" from Steve McQueen/Two Wheels Good.

I think I could listen to this CD for weeks on end and never tire of such greats as "Life of Suprises", "The Sound Of Crying", "Carnival 2000", "Appetite" and so many others.

Yes, you could go buy all the Sprout's stuff (which I recommend highly). Still, this is a great way to savor one of the most wonderful bands out there.

Go directly to their album "Two Wheels Good".......2002-10-19

This band gave us "Two Wheels Good" which makes them great, and I find myself skipping nearly every other song on this compilation and going straight to the "Two Wheels Good" tunes. There is just way too much padding here with some very silly songs.

Wonderful stuff.......2002-09-14

A very touching collection of songs that sets you in a special mood.

A TREASURE: 10 STARS.......2002-09-13

This is pop music of the very highest order: immensely literate and lyrical, sophisticated, hip, subtle, inspiring, joyous....I could go on and on, but let me just say this: it really restores your faith in human creativity. I must confess that I had never listened to this group before acquiring this CD a week ago. WOW, was I missing out!! McAloon is a indeed a GENIUS. No doubt about it. The comparisons to the great Cole Porter made by critics are well-founded. His work makes that of 99% of the rest of the pack look shabby, shallow, tired, and juvenile. Listening to this CD is the pop music equivalent of watching Renoir's Rules of the Game or reading Rilke's Duino Elegies. You feel uplifted. McAloon's music is that outstanding and it is a real pity that it has not received much more recognition from the public! If I were a Broadway producer looking to put on a musical with truly original music, I would go straight to McAloon. Paddy, where are you? (I have already gone out and bought another one of Prefab's CDs and cannot wait to sink my ears into it!)

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