Jon Savage's "Dreams Come True: Classic First Wave Electro 1982-1987"

This comp is the dope!! I love the fact that I've never even heard of 10/12 of the artists on this thing!! Folks who know more about their proper dance/DJ-able/club-able early 80's records than I do could probably say a lot about this.

Dan Selzer/Mike T. Diva to thread?

Got this recently and was a bit underwhelmed. will have to give it another listen.

I only know half of it. It's kind of a catholic view of Electro...less hip-hop and more early Freestyle. The two comps that defined Electro for me when I got them in the mid 90s are these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Classic-Electro-Mastercuts-Various-Artists/dp/B000006CLS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1227477690&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Electro-1-Various-Artists/dp/B00000AZPS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1227477700&sr=1-4

also those Street Jams: Electric Funk comp CDs.

You ask, I answer!

1. Situation - Yazoo - which mix is this, the Kevorkian?
2. Weekend - Class Action - total and utter essential classic, in any of its three (or four?) original mixes.
3. Get Wet - C-Bank - not a patch on "One More Shot", but then few records are. Surprised to see this here. I'd have gone for Xena's "On The Upside".
4. When I Hear The Music - Deb, Debbie - don't know it.
5. Love Ride - Nuance & Vikki Love - fantastic heavy thwacking drumn sound, great choice.
6. Think Fast - Joy, Pamela - I think I have this on an old C90. Don't recall it being remotely electro, though. More of a mid-tempo vocal soul/boogie track?
7. Lisa's Coming - Latin Rascals - don't know it, but the "Paco's super mix" radio megamixes that the Latin Rascals put together in 1984 are super-essential, if almost impossible to find. (I've got four on C90, from back in the day; a Berlin FM station used to re-broadcast them on Saturday nights.)
8. Dirty Talk - Klein & MBO - obvious classic, invented "Blue Monday" etc.
9. Jump Back (Set Me Free) - Braxton, Dhar - glorious latin/freestyle thingy, very perky with a super-catchy synth riff.
10. Bye Bye - Janice - don't know it.
11. Silent Morning - Noel - don't know it, though I'm familiar with "The Night They Invented Love" from 1979. Noel was more of a style-mag tip than a dance-press tip, as I recall.

When I Hear The Music - Deb, Debbie - don't know it.

Fairly syncopated and slow vocal electro, with those crystalline synth sounds so loved by 80s electro producers. The vocal delivery is not great, but suits the production well.

I liked this comp a lot more on second listening.

yeah "silent morning" was the NY club record of the moment for a minute. sort of rewrites "The Mexican" no?

that track listing is pretty thin, I expected to see more "Hip Hop Be Bop" and those electro girl-group jams like "you're always hungry when I am for the SAME THING"

Was listening to this last night. Totally off the cuff and 'uneducated' first thoughts:

The further from '82 and nearer to '87 the comp gets, the less it feels like what I think of as electro (mind you, that's a much abused genre tag anyway). 'Freestyle' does seem more OTM for some of these, but I'm largely ignorant about that little sub-genre as well. The Debbie Deb track is great though. I also liked C Bank and Dhar Braxton. "Dirty Talk" was underwhelming given its rep.

Now I'm YouTubing... the Debbie Deb sounds second-rank to me, but that Pamela Joy track has worn wonderfully well, stylistically out-of-context or not. And she's Jazmine Sullivan's mum?!?!

Actually, the Pamela Joy track could mix well into Barbara Mason's "Another Man"...

Oh, ha ha, it's a different Noel....

...yeah, and its a different "Dirty Talk" too.
No filthy laughter, no vocals, no 8 minutes long electro symphony, nothing of what was described in the liner notes - just a good (but not extraordinary) instrumental version.
This is a letdown really.

It's kind of a compilation of recent compilations (Pamela Joy's on Destination: Boogie AND the sixth volume of Masterpiece, Nuance is on the third volume of Masterpiece, "Weekend" on too many to mention).

For what it's worth, it's the instrumental version of Dirty Talk that was so influential and played everywhere. On the NY electro scene, the Chicago house scene, etc. You'd have to ask Greg Wilson if he played the vocal or not. It was the instrumental the as included on Tommy Boy's Perfect Beats.

Mike, how did you avoid hearing When I Hear Music? Maybe it's because I grew up in New Jersey, but that song is one of the most recognizable jams around.

"For what it's worth, it's the instrumental version of Dirty Talk that was so influential and played everywhere"

Its easy to spot how it influenced Blue Monday, but as someone wrote above sounds a bit underwhelming. Kind of unfortunate that the liner notes describe the vocal version, though:

That said, I quite like the Latin Rascals one - "Weekend" being the total classic that it is.

also those Street Jams: Electric Funk comp CDs.

Dirty Talk inst. is underwhelming, unless you hear it really loud in a club, then it's pretty much the best thing in the world. I"m the FIRST person to knock people who only play italo instrumentals because they think the vocals are cheesy when the vocals are almost always AWESOME (not Penguin's Invasion by Scotch, though I think the instr. came first) and I used to always play the vocal of Dirty Talk, but lately I've been playing the instrumental. Also, there are at least 2 versions of each. The USA version, which has a scratchy funky guitar bit, and the Euro version which is more minimal. The 25 West 12", which was the big US release, has the USA and Euro vocals on one side, and the matching instrumentals on the other. I think I-F used the USA instrumental on Mixed Up at the Hague because I heard that after Perfect beats and was like WTF to the guitar.

Well I tried this comp again and I'm afraid half of it bored me. I'm gonna ignore Yazoo cause we already KNOW that's a classic. I'm totally DOWN with the Class Action & C-Bank tracks. Latin Rascals was pretty cool. Dhar Braxton, too. I thought the Noel track was especially nice, because it's cool to hear a dude try to do vocals on this kind of stuff instead of a lady, and he did it in a great, understated way.

Sometimes this music feels too incestuous. I mean you know...thanks Nuance, what a way to rip off Unique's "What I've Got Is What You Need" with those backing vocals and slap a bunch of bland crap on top and rip off Indeep's male rap in the middle. Also you know...like I've got this remix of a band I love from the early 80's called Industry and they totally rip off the drum break from Blue Monday...it happens, I know. But it's BORING.

I'll seek out the Street Jams thing. I can't keep up with you folks. I'm still trying to get over two Donna Summer albums from 1976 right now. Although what I love about that Weekend track is when the lady speaks it sounds like Donna's speaking.

Can anyone shed more light on this Noel guy from this comp?

sort of rewrites "The Mexican" no?

What is that?

Playing Dirty Talk again now. Not sure how I feel about it. I think the reason it bugged me before is I was at the gym. You need special music to keep you going at the gym, and it wasn't it. Sounds cool now, though.

Borrows from Kraftwerk's Computer Love, though doesn't it? Not that I'm complaining too much. Certainly it was Coldplay who freaking bastardized that song and they should be thrown off the side of a mountain for it, one by one.

Re The Mexican - seek ye this comp.

while i am biased towards any/ all songs that reference san antone or the alamo, one shouldn't go too long through life without rocking babe ruth's "the mexican."

If you like Class Action, you should check out the 16 other versions of Weekend. There's the original Patrick Adams produced disco version by Phreek. The Jose Animal Diaz remix, the Class Action version in various mixes and of course Todd Terry's version. Speaking of Todd, his versions of the Mexican, The Texican/Dreams of Santa Anna by Orange Lemon is awesome.

also those Street Jams: Electric Funk comp CDs.

― dan selzer, Sunday, November 23, 2008 5:03 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

Yeah, I think of this series as the definitive retrospective, and all others building from. Maybe it's just casue we had the 12 inches/mix tapes, forgot about it, and these comps were the first to bring it back to our attention in years.

I actually heard When I Hear Music in Michigan before moving to Florida...but moved to florida at the end of 83/early 84, so I basically timed it just right to dive into the debbie deb/pretty tony end of the record pool