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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang (2006 Digital Remaster) | |||
| 2. Penthouse And Pavement (2006 Digital Remaster) | |||
| 3. Play To Win (2006 Digital Remaster) | |||
| 4. Soul Warfare (2006 Digital Remaster) | |||
| 5. Geisha Boys And Temple Girls (2006 Digital Remaster) | |||
| 6. Let's All Make A Bomb (2006 Digital Remaster) | |||
See all 12 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Penthouse And Pavement (Original Demo) | |||
| 2. (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang (Original Demo) | |||
| 3. Play To Win (Original Demo Instrumental) | |||
| 4. Soul Warfare (Original Demo) | |||
| 5. Are Everything (Original Demo) | |||
| 6. BEF Ident (Alternate Version) | |||
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See all 20 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 3 | |||
| 1. The Story Of Penthouse And Pavement: 2010 Documentary | |||
Product Description
Review
The album’s singles remain striking, though, however much some of the surrounding material has inevitably dated. The first, March 1981’s (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang, took leftist ideology into the (lower end of the) chart, much to the dismay of Radio 1’s Mike Read who promptly banned it from airplay. The track was the highest-charting cut from Penthouse and Pavement – proper mainstream recognition would arrive with 1983’s The Luxury Gap and its number two success, Temptation – but Play to Win and the title-track are similarly superb. The former is a twitchily insistent ode to positive mental attitudes, whatever the risks involved; the latter, a sublimely smoothly backed portrait of a work-hard, play-harder attitude and the cost to the soul in question.
Affixed to the end of the original nine-track album are the first of this set’s bonus tracks – 12" versions of I’m Your Money and Are Everything, and Decline of the West. The latter originally appeared on the cassette-only release Music for Stowaways, and further B.E.F. (British Electronic Foundation – "the new partnership that’s opening doors all over the world") tracks appear on the second disc, a collection of lost demos from 1980. These carefully restored recordings illustrate just how keen Ware and Marsh, and vocalist Glenn Gregory, were to expand the synth-pop palette. The demo tracks exude a greater organic quality than their glossed-up final mix counterparts, the band clearly feeling their way around new ideas and directions; they’re ultimately inferior as songs, but certainly interesting, even the instrumentals. Several alternate B.E.F. takes are superbly sharp and direct – the evil pulsations of Uptown Apocalypse and Music to Kill Your Parents By particularly unsettling, a world away from the glamour of The Luxury Gap.
The fine assortment of bonus tracks – and an accompanying DVD documentary – will sell this latest packaging to existing admirers, but newcomers have never had it better either. In its outtakes and experiments Penthouse and Pavement reveals its truest colours yet: it’s no masterpiece, but it is a fascinating insight into the remarkably rapid development of a genre which shows no sign of drifting quietly away into the night.
--Mike Diver
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Customer Reviews
What i didn`t expect was the attention to detail and all the extras ,mini reproductions of the single sleeves ,extensive booklet with loads of photos,poster all in a natty box.
Nice to hear the demo`s on disc 2 ,i may not want to listen to them every day ,but a fascinating listen non the less,the video i had already seen on the tv, but great to have my own copy,cant believe it was only just shy of (...),i would have payed more .
Well this reissue is a labour of love (no pun intended) and in ideal world should be kept as an example for future reissues, but an ideal world this is not.
Each of the two CDs and the DVD stand alone; the poster, the cards reproducing 12" covers are a welcome addition to the package. Thumbs up for the liner notes too.
Fully recommended in both form and substance, especially substance: Heaven 17 are today maybe even better than 30 years ago, like all good spirits.
I do not know why, but I think of them like I think about Magazine: the best of the post punk ones are immortal classics which still make you think, while you enjoy the sound and the words.
You may, also, want to dust off the first two Human League albums in CD format (which at the time came in single configuration but with enough bonuses).
Growing up in the 80s it was one of them albums you heard and had to buy.
Look out for heaven 17s 30th aniverasry tour which starts in November which is to celebrate 30 years since the realease of penthouse and pavement,where the band now consisting of Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware will be playing the whole of the album live plus extras a must for H17 fans.
the remastered original album sounds... Read more
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