Eighties top albums: Black - Wonderful Life


tracklist:

Wonderful Life
Everything's Coming Up Roses
Sometimes For The Asking
Finder
Paradise
I'm Not Afraid
I Just Grew Tired
Blue
Just Making Memories
Sweetest Smile

Colin Vearncombe, Dane Goulding and Greg Leyland make their debut in 1981 as Black with the single "Human Features". A second single, "More Than The Sun, follows, after which the duo reduced group is signed by WEA. Black will be the solo project of Vearncombe, while fellow member Dave Dix will act as his producer from that moment on.

The first single for WEA is called "" Hey Presto", which, partly due to the frequent running on MTV, is well known outside the United Kingdom. However, when a reissue of "More Than The Sun" flops, WEA dumps the group. Vearncombe, plagued by car accidents, confronted with a sick mother, a divorce and living on the streets, writes as a sarcastic reaction "Wonderful Life", released on Ugly Man Records, with an ironic undertone that is picked up by A & M Records.

The reissue a year later means the launch of his international career. Although Vearncombe is presented as a one-hit miracle, this is not entirely correct. Four singles will be released for the debut album of the same name, with "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and "Sweetest Smile" certainly not inferior to "Wonderful Life".

Also nice for the collector of that moment, each single contains songs that are not on the vinyl album. The CD that begins its advance around that time contains some of those songs, but only on the Cherry Red remodeled 2CD version from 2013 adorn all those extras.

It makes this album a top album of the eighties. The smoky-looking vocals of a lightly reverberating sounding baritone dominate the songs on synthesizer, guitar and percussion. A performance that he copied from the Thompson Twins in 1982, after Black provided their support act. His refined jazz pop songs and dramatic vocal episodes place him somewhere between Bryan Ferry and Morrissey.

Vearncombe releases three more albums under the name of Black, after which he debuts in 2005, twelve years after the last Black album under his own name. To pick up the name Black again in 2009 after a second album in 2009. On 26 January 2016, the singer died in Cork, Ireland due to complications of a car accident. Here from "Wonderful Life" the beautiful "Sweetest Smile".


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