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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Box-set treatment of one of the great British bands..., 13 Feb 2003
2000 should have seen a revival of Magazine, all the pop kids should have been walking 'round with Howard Devoto's words pulsing through their mind...Instead they bought Radiohead's Kid A- which is less experimental than anything contained here (& severely indebted to it). Magazine were amongst the most interesting bands to occur during the punk/post-punk/new wave thing- alongside PIL, Pere Ubu, Joy Division, Wire, Only Ones, The Sound etc Here is a perfect box-set, much longer than the single-disc best of that accompanied this (if it's a single disc compilation you want, the earlier Rays & Hail is much better) that takes in Magazine's career. The discs' supply many alternate versions- the third one devoting itself to various John Peel sessions from 1978 to 1980 (& including a great version of Spiral Scratch-classic Boredom). So it's still OK to own all the albums- Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, Correct Use of Soap & Magic, Murder & the Weather. It does feature many tracks from live album Play (1980) & the odds'n'sods compilation Scree. Nice to have everything in one place, in a pleasant box with a great booklet. The first disc features early singles Touch & Go and Give Me Everything (& it's b-side- a great version of Captain Beefheart's I Love You Big Dummy). Real Life is represented by the storming keyboard-pulse of My Tupla, which still sounds centuries ahead of its time. I don't think the version of The Light Pours Out of Me is the best one- though no one can deny that The Stone Roses borrowed the drumbeat for I am the Ressurection (still, not as bad as the Peter Murphy cover...) The brilliant Secondhand Daylight is represnted by single Rhythm of Cruelty (& it's flip TV Baby), Back to Nature & live versions of Feed the Enemy and Permafrost (the latter my fave Magazine song). Pity we don't get Motorcade or The Thin Air... The 2nd disc offers Correct Use of Soap-era material: Dostoyevsky-quoting A Song from Under the Floorboards, single Upside Down, Sweetheart Contract & a brilliant live take of Model Worker- which captures the paranoia of the era: Reagan, New Cold War, Let's all Make a Bomb, Afghanistan invaded by Russia, Bomb Iran! etc Magic, Murder & the Weather is a patchy affair, though Vigilance & Come Alive are fine (here in alternative mixes); where is About the Weather??? Maybe it's Right to be Nervous Now is a great reminder of a great band & in the world of box-sets is up there with Dylan's Biograph, Joy Division's Heart&Soul, Pere Ubu's Datapanik in the Year Zero & the Lee'Scratch'Perry Arkology collection. It's up there with the great music of this era: Low, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Cut, We Are All Prostitutes, Suicide, Affectionate Punch, 17 Seconds, Metal Box, More Specials etc. It has to be owned, just for the line "I have no idea what you want/But there was something I meant to say...": Dostoyevsky-Hamsen-Rimbaud-Kafka-Camus-Beckett-Devoto, Howard...
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