So
a while back I wrote about how awesome German synthpop band Alphaville's first album,
Forever Young, is. And it is! I think I actually like it more than when I wrote that. It sounds like what I imagine heroin must feel like.
However, here's a hard truth: when I castigated a particular music guide for writing the band off, I was, I'm afraid, being too harsh, because
every other Alphaville album sucks. Hard. It's just
bizarre. Their debut consists of fantastic, indelible pop songs, whereas everything else they've done is just…really, really
boring. I mean, I'll grant that there are a few songs I don't totally hate, but certainly none I
love; none of them have any of the great hooks and overheated emotion that make
Forever Young so memorable. Sure, a lot of people rate their later work highly, but a lot of people are kind of, I don't know, dumb? Actually, though if you look at their
discography, you can see that public sentiment is on my side for once.
Forever Young was a substantial hit, the follow-up, the boring
Afternoons in Utopia was, presumably based on expectations, a somewhat reasonable hit; after that--not much. The same goes for their singles. And it
sucks, because I
really want them to have done a whole bunch for
Forever-Young-caliber albums. But, alas, 'twas not to be.
