Act - Love & Hate – A Compact Introduction To Act FLAC download

Love & Hate – A Compact IntroductionBy the time Act’s only album “Laughter, Tears & Rage” was released, the charts were being dominated by records produced by the Stock Aitken Waterman production team. Their attack on the charts was relentless as they were giving the teenager audience what they really wanted, disposable production line style pure pop records, with no emphasis on experimental well crafted music that Zang Tuum Tumb had been so successful at since 1983.By early 1987 and late 1989 ZTT were in a void, their three biggest artists were no longer part of the label’s roster, leaving them without any significant hits. There was one glimmer of hope in the form of a collaboration between ex-Propaganda vocalist Claudia Brücken and Thomas Leer, imaginatively named Act. In theory they should have been the next big thing for the label, although it wasn’t meant to be as their debut single and highest chart entry “Snobbery & Decay” stalled at number 60 and their 1988 debut album went unnoticed.So why didn’t Act set the charts on fire? Was their music too ambitious or did it lack ingenuity or charm?The answer to those questions only occurred to me when reading the blurb on the back of the packaging of this collection “Music so cutting edge”, and then the penny dropped… timing.Maybe if the record had been made and released a couple of years earlier it would have been a force to have been reckoned with. It certainly has depth and quality to it, but what we have to bear in mind is that by 1988 electronic synth pop was effectively dead. Gary Numan had vanished, OMD were on the verge of splitting, Kraftwerk were AWOL, the Human League had passed their sell by date and Howard Jones hadn’t had a top 20 hit since 1985. Unfortunately the genre had been taken over by the cheap D.I.Y. productions of house music and acid house along with the never ending hits coming out from the aforementioned Stock Aitken Waterman stable.After 27 years I listened to Act’s only album for the first time as part of this compilation and for me the title “Love & Hate - A Compact Introduction” couldn’t be more apt. An overlooked late 80s gem with many pleasant surprises, far better than I expected it to be.Disc 1 is the “Laughter, Tears & Rage (The Director’s Cut)” version with the apparent original running order and extra tracks. Although Brücken was the common denominator of both Propaganda and Act, musically they were worlds apart. One is made very aware of this when listening as Act incorporated cabaret, theatrical themes with popular synthpop styles along with very discreet hints of late 80s dance thrown into the mix making it lighter in tone to that of Propaganda and ironically should have made it more accessible for the music buying public at large.From the opening song “Gestures” to the closing track “Snobbery & Decay” the listener is taken on a journey of pure unadulterated pop music, even though that statement is a contradiction in terms due to its potpourri of incorporated genres, it is possibly the closest thing that ZTT ever got to releasing a true pop album and theoretically the only real competition they should have had should have been from the Pet Shop Boys.The superb electronic sound throughout this album complements the style of the vocals that give each song its own unique identity and at the same time manages to retain a large amount of continuity from track to track, although the cover of The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” seems completely out of place. There is nothing wrong with the track itself as a stand alone, but it doesn’t really compliment the rest of the album lyrically.Listening to this collection was a real joy and one of those ‘I wish I head listened to this album years ago’ moments. Unlike the majority of synth pop albums from the 1980s this one has a unique charm about, an identity and character of its own even though a lot of influences can be detected if you listen out for them.Disc 2, entitled “Emotional 12” Versions” contains 12”, 7”, b-sides and other experimentations from the group’s short-lived existence, aimed at the connoisseur keep both new listeners and faithful fans happy.This is the second ‘a compact introduction’ in ZTT’s Element series, and is far superior to that of the first, Propaganda’s “Noise And Girls Come Out To Play” which was in essence a collection of various mixes of just 3 or 4 songs and was extremely repetitive. The accompanying booklet features excellent sleeve notes that are an essential read like those of other releases in the series along with previously unreleased images of the group themselves by Patrick Lichfield9.5/10