Level 42 - The Complete Polydor Years Volume Two

It's hard not to think of the mid 90's music scene and not get a little mixed up. There was trance over here,high NRG over here,new jack swing over here and each seemed to be on these different,crazy collision courses. During the 80's Level 42 were one of the most durable and frankly consistant bands of the era,always based in it's jazz-funk roots but adding dashes of pop and even disco along the way. When their 90's debut  Guaranteed  came out.....things hadn't changed for them. A few years later when Level 42 went back into the studio to record their second album of the decade they decided that,for the first time since the mid 80's to mix it up a bit with some modern elements such as the fuzzy,droning hip-hop beats that pretty much dominated 90's funk as well as some elements of disco revival. But just because they changed their beats doesn't mean they changed their entire approch. Mark King's bass brilliance and Mike Lindup melodic keyboards still hold down the fort.Lyrically there is an interesting tendency here to speak a great deal of the transendant;"Past Lives" with it's quirky grooves actually deals with reincarnation wheras the likeminded "The Bends" even references Samuel Taylor Coleridge's  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner .On "Don't Bother Me" there is some overdo cultural reference to the bands salad days referring to someone "spending the 80's in a trance" and having "led us all on a merry dance". There's still plenty of the bands breezy,humane'lovestruck and poetic mood to go around as "Romance,"Time Will Heal" and "The Sunbed Song" all reveal."Learn To Say No" was a a huge hit off the album and it's no wonder because it has the most strong resemblance to the bands classic sound. One interesting quality here is how much the band draw musically here from 70's R&B/funk. Yes it was the genre that inspired them in the first place but they were never a retro band. Despite the contemporary leanings, between Mike's heavy use of the fender rhodes and horns on a lot of songs this is definately the closest Level 42 ever came to 70's funk-soul revival. At the same time their own sound always came first. Even though it has fanfaring horns and this urban flavor the title song,also a hit maintains the magical musical quality that has sustained Level 42 over the years. Another "hit" song is "Love In A Peaceful World",which sums up perfectly the cultural atmospherics of the period-a need for carefree romance in a world based on paranoia and revisionist history. The album actually opens up with one of it's odder songs "Billy's Gone",a rather dark and mournful song that recalls some of Level 42's earlier instrumental pieces like "Dune Tune" only with that modern fuzzy beat. This album was originally released in 1994 but a couple years later was reissued with a different track listing.For some reason two excellent songs were removed and are on the second CD of this set. One is "Tired Of Waiting",a classic Level 42 jam in every sense of the word. "All Over You",also uptempo is a more "contempo" club track,at least as far as Level 42 could get at that time. In fact four of the remixes that fill out the second disk of this set are remixes of that song that are even more clubby. Ditto for the rest of the remixes here,save for two true-to-the-original mixes of "Love In A Peaceful World". During a time when generic sounds were accepted and even critically acclaimed during this era of pop music Level 42 were still remaining very true to themselves. And even if they weren't releasing albums at all consistantly during this time it was nice to hear them keeping true to the context of their own musical vision.

Initially, I was disappointed. I guess I was listening for some of the sound from my favorite CD "True Colors", which features the driving "Hot Water." Nothing grabbed me the first time through. The tempos of many songs seemed awfully slow to me, and the melodies uninspired. On the plus side, however, the famous Mark King bassline enjoys a richness that it has not had for many albums, although in most songs it still lacks the attack that converts a great bassline into a truly awesome riff. I decided to reserve judgement, however, until I had listened to it a few more times, many of my favorite albums being ones that didn't hit me quite right the first time I listened. Now after three listenings, the album has grown on me alot. The basslines on many of the songs are excellent, as is to be expected, and the melodies have grown on me too. I still find several of the songs to be mediocre, but I think this album parts with industry tradition by putting most of the good songs toward the end. There are several excellent songs with the classic Level 42 sound. If you are a die hard Level 42 fan, you'll relish the return of the prominent bass work. If you're new to Level 42, I'd recommend instead, "True Colors" and "World Machine" (the UK release) as primers to this great band.

Don't waste your money, this is a total and complete ripoff.For those of you not up on Level 42's discography, there were two releases of Level 42's Forever Now album. RCA originally released it in 1994, and Resurgence released another version with different mixes and track order in 1996. The cover art and the fact that the title of this product explicitly mentions both "RCA" and "1994" would lead one to think that this is the first version, wouldn't it?It's not. This disc contains a total of four songs. According to the laughable picture at the top of the page for this product, three of those songs are "exclusive bonus tracks"... yippee.I'd give this zero (0) stars if I could. Thanks for wasting my time.

I've always loved Lever 42 since I first heard them back in the mid 80s. Their ballads are smooth & the dance music is worthy of any club. I own most of their older music & I'm trying to complete my collection. I highly recommend this cd.

I was hoping some of the spark of their earlier albums would have made it here but it didn't. This album is just way too soft for my tastes, even for them. If your looking for some gentle background music that won't offend anyone than this is your album.

One of the BEST!!! All songs are great.

I loved this band for years but lost interest at "Guaranteed" which I found very unsatisfying as it tried to rustle up some more hits. Many years later (2014) I saw Level 42 top the bill of a cheesy 80s fest and were blown away how good they still are. Time to find the forgotten album ! This is great, very soulful and melodic, more like the early funk stuff and less like the chart bothering single stuff which is great when it works but less so when it doesn't. Tracks like Romance and One in a million are just gorgeous slinky numbers. Phil Gould had returned for this album as a writer and I think it shows. Its strange how the band split after ten years after this lovely album. Enjoy !

Great songs, the last great collection of songs from mark and philip

Excellent cd

Love level 42 and this cd is great.

not their best but getting back to their best