Classix Nouveaux: album reviews and ratings

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	Classix Nouveaux (1979-1983)

Artist Listing:

S - Z

Line-up:
Sal Solo - Vocals, Keyboards, Guitars
Mik Sweeney - Bass, Keyboards, backing Vocals
Gary Steadman - Guitars, Synthesizers
B.P. Hurding - Drums, Electronic Percussion, Saxophone, backing Vocals

"The band formed in 1979 by Sal Solo, Mik Sweeny, BP Hurding, and Jak Airport. BP and Jak had previously been in punk band X-ray Spex, and Sal and Mik had been in new wave band The News. (...) In 1979 they toured with Adam & the Ants. In 1980 Gary Steadman (ex-Eater) replaced Jak and they released 3 singles (Nasty Little Green, Tokyo & Guilty). Guilty was a classic single, in a one-hit-wonder manner of speaking - basic and catchy with sparse string synth, a splash of guitar, repetetive bass and dark vocals. Nestled after a windy little instumental that sounds like an outtake from the 'War of the Worlds' soundtrack, it sets the scene for a debut album in the same vein as the first Visage album. (...) Steadman left in 1982 and was replaced by Jimi Suman and they released their third album, 'Secret', in 1983. The band split up after this release and Sal Solo went solo."

lexiconmagazine.com/NWC/Class_nouv.html

Classix Nouveaux Discography - Album / CD Reviews

½ 1981: Classix Nouveaux (aka Night People)
1-Forward 2- Guilty 3- Run way 4- No Sympathy, No Violins 5- Inside Outside 6- 623 7- Every Home Should Have One 8- Tokyo 9- Or a Movie 10- Soldier 11-The Protector of Night
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¼ 1982: La Verité
1-Foreward 2- Is it a dream? 3- To believe 4- Because you're young 5- 6 to 8 6- La Verite 7- Never again 8-It's all over 9- 1999 10-I will return 11- Finale
"... a reissue of the second Classix Nouveau album from 1982 with an additional two bonus tracks (b-sides to the singles 'Is It A Dream' and 'Because You're Young' and as very ordinary b-sides indeed I'll be saying no more about them!). (...) this album - with the very notable exception of 'Is It A Dream' which sounds great - sounds like Ultravox in a moment of absent minded noodling about in the studio... and that is quite frankly a great shame. There's 13 tracks here - the 2 extra tracks I dismissed earlier and of the remaining eleven that make the album proper two of them are the oh-so-pompous 'Foreward' and 'Finale' (read thirty seconds of electronic bleeping and 'atmosphere'), 'To Believe' is a keyboard drenched cod-goth anthem - the sort of thing that gives goth a bad name and sounds like it was written for a musical, and this sets the standard for the album with the exception of 'Is It A Dream' which sounds like it was made by a different band, and the upbeat and poppy 'Never Again', but otherwise this is a pretty dismal listening experience."

-- remembertheeighties.com

½ 1983: Secret
1-All Around the World 2-Manitou 3-The Heart from the Start 4- Five Inside 5- Forever and a Day 6-Never, Never Comes 7-The Unloved 8- When They All Have Gone 9-No Other Way
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1997: The Very Best of Classix Nouveaux
"Fronted by the bald, charismatic vocalist Sal Solo, CN didn't score many UK hits but nonetheless wrote some great songs. Signed to the now-defunct Liberty/United Artists label, their relatively short life saw three studio albums and a substantial live reputation before they called it a day in the mid 80s, Solo going er...solo (one hit: San Damiano). The Robot's Dance, their debut single, combined the sounds of Solo's incredible, almost operatic vocals, Mik Sweeney's mesmeric fretless bass and BP (Big Paul) Hurding's Simmonds drumming to devastating effect with its tempo shift at the end suprising many at the time. La Verite, the title track of their second album, is brilliant even now. A ballad examining both spirituality (it means 'the truth') and unrequited love, it is arguably one of the finest (and some would say most pompous!) songs they ever wrote. The album sounds like a winner with new versions of songs that were already close to perfection."

-- Al Ferrier, amazon.co.uk customer review, 2/02

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Recommended Links:

Classix Nouveaux on Wikipedia
Classix Nouveaux on MySpace