Alphaville, "The Singles Collection"

This is the third album in a series of albums that I haven't heard in over twenty years ...

While it's technically true that I haven't listened to this exact album in decades (having bought it on cassette for peanuts), I haven heard the singles numerous times over the years, because Alphaville continue to receive steady airplay even today.  Or rather, Alphaville's two best known singles have never really gone away, save for a short time during the 90's.  Like many bands of their era, Alphaville were completely out of place during the early 90's but revived their career once non-ironic 80's nostalgia kicked in.   Jay-Z's sample/cover of "Forever Young" brought them full circle, rescuing them from being an 80's trivia question in the US and introducing them to a completely new generation of fans.  Jay and Mr. Hudson's "Young Forever" was a top ten Billboard hit, far and away bigger than anything they achieved in the 80's.  

"The Singles Collection" was timed around the re-release of the "Forever Young" single, and seemed designed to give them one last crack at breaking through in the US market.  Maybe there was a stigma about European bands looking and sounding too European.  The open vowels and strained pronunciation in "Forever Young" are a clear giveaway as the band's non-British origins. You might say that it didn't seem to hurt a-ha, but "Take On Me" a) had the iconic, way ahead of its time video, and b) was the crazy exception that proved the rule.  Between "Dancing Queen" in 1977 and the rise of Milli Vanilli and Roxette in 1989, a span of twelve years, there were only five number one Billboard hits by continental European acts:

Stars on 45, "Stars on 45 Medley"
Vangelis, "Chariots of Fire"
a-ha, "Take On Me"
Jan Hammer, "Miami Vice Theme"
Falco, "Rock Me Amadeus"

By my count, that's three novelty songs, two movie tie-ins ("Rock Me Amadeus" counts as both), and only one proper, non-gimmicky number one hit -- "Take On Me".  Not to mention that Jan Hammer was living in the US and was a US citizen when he topped the charts -- with the theme song to an American TV show -- and probably shouldn't be on this list.  It was simply not a good time for German bands trying to find success in the US.  It seems they could improve their chances by exploiting their front line Cold War cred and singing about nuclear war paranoia (Nena's smash hit "99 Red Balloons" hit #2).  "Forever Young" pushed all the right buttons (fear of the bomb, teenage melodrama, yanking every heartstring in the chorus) but couldn't even scrape the top fifty.  Alphaville's victory was in the long game, their love song spans five different decades and still matters today.   

It also didn't help that they released a compilation called "The Singles Collection" with only four songs.  It suggested that they were a flash in the pan who didn't even have enough songs to pad out the rest of their supposed greatest hits compilation.  The song selection was unusual, considering that they had four other singles from their first two albums that could have been included, all of which had performed well on European charts  Nevertheless, I loved the format, and still do today.  Think of it as a double EP of remixes, and its a brilliant concept.  You get the single version and a DJ-friendly  extended version of each song, perfect for parties or just for those times when four minutes of a great song isn't long enough. 

"Forever Young". Is there another song whose original version and its radically different remix were almost interchangeably successful?  I can think of R. Kelly's "Ignition (Remix)" and the Todd Terry mix of Everything But the Girl's "Missing", I'm sure there are others.

"Big In Japan".  Still a monster song, and I love how the remix breaks down its rich, spidery, multiple bass lines. 

"Red Rose".  This song is the jewel hiding in plain sight on this collection.  Oddly enough, it wasn't a hit anywhere at the time, but it should have been.  Its driving, vaguely Motown-ish beat suggested a shift away from typical synth pop and toward a groovy, almost Robert Palmer-esque rock and roll vibe.  It was an attempt to appeal to American tastes, but nobody was biting. What a shame ...

"Dance With Me".  The clear #4 on this compilation, with a hokey chorus that I've never been able to enjoy, but still a glorious slice of bouncy roller-rink and 80's teen movie ready synth pop.  Far from their finest moment, but still better than most other bands in the genre were managing at the time.