16 October 2009

HOWARD JONES


Some synth-tastic eighties music for you today.

While Howard Jones was never the biggest name in the industry, if you were listening to the radio back in the eighties you couldn't help but hear some of his tunes. "New Song", "What Is Love", "Things Can Only Get Better", and many others were everywhere back then. They even helped out the soundtracks to some of the classic teen comedies of the day.

Howard hasn't scored a monster hit in quite some time, but he's still kicking around the business. He's still releasing new music, and tours often.

And he no longer has the wonderful eighties hair cut.

Here's a batch of tracks from the b-sides of his singles. Some (but not all) of these were released on a compilation that was included with a limited edition version of one of his greatest hits packages, though I don't think that version ever made its way to the US.

(files expired)

Howard Jones - "Conditioning" (Version) This one's different than the version on Human's Lib. It sounds like it may be an early demo. It was released as the b-side of "New Song".
Howard Jones - "Learning How To Love" The b-side of "Look Mama".
Howard Jones - "Boom Bap Respite" A piano instrumental released on "Life In One Day". As much as I love his new wave songs, I've always been particularly fond of this more traditional piece.
Howard Jones - "Will You Still Be There?" (Acoustic Version) B-side of the regular version.
Howard Jones - "Dig This Well Deep" B-side of "You Know I Love You. . . Don't You?"
Howard Jones - "Hunger For The Flesh" (Orchestral Version) Howard released a couple of orchestral versions of his tunes on the "Little Bit of Snow" 12" single. I seem to have misplaced my copy of the other one, "Hide and Seek", if anyone his it. . .

Give HoJo some cash money:

Human's Lib, 1984 (buy)
Dream Into Action, 1985 (buy)
One To One, 1986
Cross That Line, 1989 (buy)
In the Running, 1992 (buy)
Working In the Backroom, 1994
People, 1998
Revolution of the Heart, 2005 (buy)
Ordinary Heroes, 2009 (scheduled for November 6th)


In other music-related news, it appears that Blender magazine shut it's doors a few months back (I wondered why I hadn't seen any new issues lately). If you had a subscription, you'll now be receiving Maxim, without any explanation as to why. The real reason is that Maxim is now the only magazine owned by the company that used to own Blender, and they don't want to return your money. So, they're mailing out a magazine that has fuck all to do with music, hoping you won't notice, or something like that.

If you had a subscription, and have any trouble stopping the switcheroo, their customer service number (that they don't publish on their website, or in their magazine) is 1-800-892-5572.

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