- Audio CD
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Import
- ASIN: B000E321JQ
- Other Editions: Audio CD | Audio Cassette | Vinyl
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 108,122 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
As quite often happens with me, I bought MOSAIC for a single song - "Everybody Have Fun Tonight", the only one I recall ever hearing before buying the album and the most famous of the lot - and ended up liking a couple of the other songs even better than the original raison d'etre of the album. Out of the eight songs, I'm very fond of four, which is a pretty good hit rate by my standards.
Jack Hues (the lead vocalist on "Everybody Have Fun Tonight") is lead vocalist throughout, and most of the songs have approximately the same mix of vocals, give or take throwaway lines.
"Everybody Have Fun Tonight" Original 1986 recording (ouch, that it's been that long), hasn't been given any new ill-advised "musically superior" arrangement.
"Hypnotize Me" Forgettable. "Just shine the light in my eyes/And hypnotize me love."
"The Flat Horizon" I'm fond of this one, though I have to say I had to read the lyrics before I had a good grasp of all that was being said. "Oh this line is the flat horizon/and you are the shape on the left/Oh this line is the flat horizon/And this is the sun in the sky/Oh this line is the flat horizon/and makes the great divide/between heaven and angels/and earth and man."
"Betrayal" Minor key as sax dominates the accompaniment, very sad while being a good song.
"Let's Go" - One of my three favourite songs on here; surprising that it isn't played more often on weekday mornings. Very cheerful and upbeat. "I wish you'd drop what you're doing/And get on the case/We could blow this existence/Right out into space..."
"Eyes of the Girl" - Fast 4/4 tempo, dominated by snare and guitar."Tears fall from the eyes of the girl/and the girl is watching me."
"A Fool and His Money" - "Just like a fool and his money/Just like a fool, I let it slip away". Slower tempo, but with guitar rather than keyboards dominating the instrumental accompaniment, and with a different mix of supporting vocalists. "Betrayal" is much more effective at conveying heartbreak; Jack Hues doesn't sound like he really cares about the subject of the song here.
"The World in Which We Live" - The longest song on the album at over 7 minutes (the others average about 4 minutes 45 seconds), arguably the most obscure (the unexpurgated lyrics aren't a help there), and yet the song that gives the album its name. While the tempo seems much faster than that of the other songs due to the driving percussion, it's actually about the same beat as "Let's Go" with a lot more energy. "The world in which we live/the world in which we all are depends/whoever would forgive/the way we treat the world in which we live/Chorus: The world is a mosaic upon a golden floor/Moving silently, darkly through space/and our lives are the fragments and all that's gone before..."
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Wang Chung are one of the most under rated bands of the 80's and never really reached the mega stardom which they deserved. They had a unique sound which was both energetic and addictive in an era when everybody was trying to sound like Duran Duran or The Cure. Mosaic is not their best album but does have its classics such as Hypnotize Me and World in Which We Live. It is one of those albums that grow on you the more you listern to it and I would recommend this album (which has been re released on CD) to fans and those who are just curious alike. Also look out for their second album, Points on the Curve which is available on import and is Wang Chung at their finest...
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
I know it because I lived it.
17 Aug 2006
Format:Audio CD
Let me indulge readers in an alternative perspective of Wang Chung. The other reviews here seem to rubberband between worshipfulness and thrashing. How about a more reasonable, more objective view? I remember seeing the video for "Dance Hall Days" from their 1984 album "Points On The Curve" as my first exposure to Wang Chung. I was unaware at the time that they already had a previous album.
In 1985, I was aware of "To Live And Die In L.A." and saw the video for the title track (and later the film by William Friedkin--The Exorcist, The French Connection).
In October 1986, "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" was inescapable, and to a 13 year old kid like myself the video was unique and the song was infectious. "Let's Go" was the second single/video, and I was sold. I saw Jack and Nick at an in store signing at Sound Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado in March 1987. The third single, "Hypnotize Me" was also good, and was used in the film "Innerspace" with Dennis Quaid and Martin Short.
All eight songs on Mosaic are well produced and arranged. If you didn't like the New Wave sound of the 1980s, then you probably won't like "Mosaic". I thoroughly enjoy the punk/New Wave sound, so 20 years later, I still enjoy "Mosaic". "A Fool And His Money" I think of as being the weakest track. Otherwise, "The Flat Horizon, "The World In Which We Live", "Betrayal" and "The Eyes Of The Girl" are all solid numbers. Unfortunately, "Mosaic" would prove to be the pinnacle of Wang Chung's career.
In 1989, I was quick to buy their next album "The Warmer Side Of Cool", which may surpass "Mosaic" artistically. However, by 1989, many popular artists of the 1980s were being snubbed by radio and MTV/VH1, and so Wang Chung disappeared from view.
I have "Strictly, Inc." with Jack Hues and Tony Banks (of Genesis) from 1995 which received no recognition. Then their Greatest Hits was released in 1997 with a new track "Space Junk" which I felt showed great promise, but there was to be no new album.
In June 2005, after I thought they'd vanished into the annals of pop music history, Jack and Nick showed the world once more that they are trained experts at their craft when they performed on the television show "Hit Me Baby One More Time" covering Nelly's "Hot In Herre" with the precision of a surgeon. There was talk of a new Wang Chung album (which I'd snap up in a minute), but alas, a year has come and gone and no new album.
And so those of us who appreciate Jack and Nick's vision have to deal with derision from anti-80's music snobs who are in no position to judge music they weren't old enough to experience the first time around or who were old enough, but preferred hair bands or the fledgling, underproduced rap music of the day.
I give "Mosaic" four stars because I never felt Wang Chung were allowed to reach their true potential, but what they did leave behind is pure melodic New Wave/romanticism that no one seems capable of duplicating 20 years later. It was another time and another place 20 years ago, and while there is a new Neo-New Wave music crowd burgeoning, I haven't heard anything remotely similar to what Wang Chung were able to devise.
In 1985, I was aware of "To Live And Die In L.A." and saw the video for the title track (and later the film by William Friedkin--The Exorcist, The French Connection).
In October 1986, "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" was inescapable, and to a 13 year old kid like myself the video was unique and the song was infectious. "Let's Go" was the second single/video, and I was sold. I saw Jack and Nick at an in store signing at Sound Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado in March 1987. The third single, "Hypnotize Me" was also good, and was used in the film "Innerspace" with Dennis Quaid and Martin Short.
All eight songs on Mosaic are well produced and arranged. If you didn't like the New Wave sound of the 1980s, then you probably won't like "Mosaic". I thoroughly enjoy the punk/New Wave sound, so 20 years later, I still enjoy "Mosaic". "A Fool And His Money" I think of as being the weakest track. Otherwise, "The Flat Horizon, "The World In Which We Live", "Betrayal" and "The Eyes Of The Girl" are all solid numbers. Unfortunately, "Mosaic" would prove to be the pinnacle of Wang Chung's career.
In 1989, I was quick to buy their next album "The Warmer Side Of Cool", which may surpass "Mosaic" artistically. However, by 1989, many popular artists of the 1980s were being snubbed by radio and MTV/VH1, and so Wang Chung disappeared from view.
I have "Strictly, Inc." with Jack Hues and Tony Banks (of Genesis) from 1995 which received no recognition. Then their Greatest Hits was released in 1997 with a new track "Space Junk" which I felt showed great promise, but there was to be no new album.
In June 2005, after I thought they'd vanished into the annals of pop music history, Jack and Nick showed the world once more that they are trained experts at their craft when they performed on the television show "Hit Me Baby One More Time" covering Nelly's "Hot In Herre" with the precision of a surgeon. There was talk of a new Wang Chung album (which I'd snap up in a minute), but alas, a year has come and gone and no new album.
And so those of us who appreciate Jack and Nick's vision have to deal with derision from anti-80's music snobs who are in no position to judge music they weren't old enough to experience the first time around or who were old enough, but preferred hair bands or the fledgling, underproduced rap music of the day.
I give "Mosaic" four stars because I never felt Wang Chung were allowed to reach their true potential, but what they did leave behind is pure melodic New Wave/romanticism that no one seems capable of duplicating 20 years later. It was another time and another place 20 years ago, and while there is a new Neo-New Wave music crowd burgeoning, I haven't heard anything remotely similar to what Wang Chung were able to devise.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Everybody have fun tonight...
29 Oct 2000
Format:Audio CD
It's more than likely that the single Everybody have fun tonight..." is the one most people will be familiar with but this album was one of the classic 80's albums (and there were such a lot...).
I managed to get this on CD last year after having it on vinyl for ages and then losing it. Wang Chung never got the recognition in the UK that they had in the US, I remember a reviewer of "Points On The Curve" writing them off as too American, and that was with the class "Dance Hall Days" on there as well.
The uptempo songs such as "Everybody...", "Hypnotise Me" (English spelling) and "Let's Go" are all worth the money, but my favourite song on here is "Betrayal". This ballad is a moving song about a guy who married his child-hood sweet-heart and has realised that she's betrayed him with someone-else while he's been out working all hours trying to get enough money to live. A familiar story to many people I think...
Wang Chung always sounded to me like they were having a good time and just wanted others to share in their fun. Go on, you know you want to...
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
THE SEMINAL 80's ALBUM
15 Sep 2002
Format:Audio CD
Sure, Michael Jackson, Culture Club and Wham sold more! But what song is more of an indictment of the decade than "Everybody Have Fun Tonight"?
Wang Chung, anyone?
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