Human Racing

Alexa - play me an album from the 80's

My guilty pleasure, I voted for this, not because it was a reminder of my younger years but because, as a debut album it was successful and also was one of the key new wave synth albums that other artists encompassed, copied and modified. There isn't a bad song on the album, many of the songs refer to the issues of the times

Wouldn't it be good has been the theme song to Cadbury commercials in Australia for about the last 30 years. It's a fucking banger. I didn't know the rest of the album, but it isn't as good. There's an "intense pop" feel, with all this stop-start stuff and synthesised slap bass etc etc, that I wasn't in the mood for today. I'm gonna give it a decent score though, for wouldn't it be nice and I won't let the sun go down on me, as well as the guitar solo in cloak and dagger. 4/5.

Downside is more new wave bullshit Upside on a few tracks is that it *nearly* touches Oingo Boingo in new wave fun. Needs more horns! The lyrics are *very* "I'm 14 and this is deep"

When people say they don't like 80s music this is what they think it all sounds like.

Feel like a lot of the user albums are more of the nostalgic music people listened to a lot growing up. I never heard of this album before but I’d imagine if I grew up in the 80s this would be a popular one. To me this was some boy band solo artist 80s new wave stuff that was pretty dull and didn’t have any of the flair of the better new wave music. 4.3/10

Basic 80’s pop. I don’t understand how this was so many weeks on top of the UK charts

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Wouldn’t it be good, Shame on you, Faces, I won’t let the sun go down on me

Quintessential 80's vibe. I personally prefer The Riddle, but Wouldn't It Be Good and I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me alone make it worthwhile to listen to the album.

There are a few songs that I recognize but never knew who it was. Nice addition to the list.

A girl I met on the debate tournament circuit in high school got me into Nick Kershaw via a mix tape, and Wouldn’t It Be Good? became an immediate favorite of mine. The rest of the album I liked a lot then. I’m not sure this would have bubbled up to the top if I was new to this today, but Wouldn’t It Be Good? is so catchy and Drum Talk is really different. What fun to revisit this old favorite!

I couldn't have told you earlier today that it wasn't Nik Kershaw's "Wouldn't it be Good" on the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, which I listened to hundreds of times in the later 80s. But I went back and listened, and that's definitely not Nik Kershaw. Weird. (I probably would have sung it "wouldn't it be nice" as it were. It's been a while.) I digress. It was a favorite song despite all that. I think I would have really enjoyed this album back then, too.

Good hit singles, but not such a good overall LP. A bit too experimental with those achingly 1980s synth sounds, perhaps.

A rare New Wave LP that took me by surprise - was never really sure where this one was going, and the constantly-evolving rhythms and off-kilter instrumentation felt surprisingly distinct for an album in this genre. Some slower, standard takes of the time towards the back half drag a little, but overall this was a solid and pretty entertaining listen.

Typical 80s sound. And this album has 2 songs I knew, but would never been able to name the artist

I thought this was actually pretty wierd for what was apparently a successful pop album. New wave adjacent but kind of its own thing. I liked it OK, it was a good workout jam, but a little too far on the soft side for me and certainly dated.

It's alright, seems like pretty standard mid-80s fare to me. 3 stars.

if you look up 'the 80's' on Wikipedia, I think it might redirect you to Nik Kershaw's page. I think this ticks all the boxes on what the 80's sounded like musically. Quite a good vocalist, some catchy hit singles I remember from back then, and also a little bit of an edge here and there. Not all that bad actually.

Tough one. The bangers don't outweigh the 80's blandness

Decent 80s pop. Wouldn't It Be Good is a banger. Rating: 2.5 Playlist track: Wouldn't It Be Good Date listened: 14/10/24

Better than I expected, but I have an instinctive aversion to 80s production!

Snooze

There's a lot of similar stuff in the book that I didn't enjoy as much as this. I don't love it but it was a pretty good listen.

It does surprise me that someone would submit this... didn't you get enough 80s new wave from the original list? Like maybe if this was doing something really interesting or unique I could see but this just sounds like every other new wave album that exists. Nothing interesting or unique. Just that boring 80s sound that has aged so poorly. I wish the user submitted albums would also have a blurb submitted by the user to explain their thought process behind submitting their album. I just struggle to see why this was done. My personal rating 2.5/5 My rating relative to the original list: 2.5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Absolutely not. There was more than enough generic bland 80s new wave / pop and this is just another one to add to the pile.

Is there anyone my age who doesn't love Wouldn't It Be Good?

A forgettable and bland 80s pop staple, like plenty of others that did make it into the book! Absolutely not what I would choose to listen to, but clearly not terrible; just not for me.

Some very danceable grooves. Seems like it would be a great love show

This sounded both ultra 80s with all the synths and new wave stuff and 90s dance but most importantly it sounded incredibly British.

The truth is that it's an album that bored me, I couldn't get any emotion out of it. At the beginning I had expectations, but track by track they faded away. I felt like one of those artists from the eighties who arrived one day and faded away in the face of the consolidated successes of the time.

The best thing about this album is that it made me remember the Riddle. 2 The fucking chipmunks in gone to pieces lmao

We could’ve left this in 1984 where it was

Doesn't have much going for it

I think maybe my brother had this album when it came out, but that I didn't particularly connect with it. That hasn't really changed as I come back to it today. It's an odd little album, a bit of a hodgepodge of quirky synth-forward songs that are very much of their time. The singles are solid enough, but it's nothing I care to revisit. Fave Songs: Wouldn't It Be Good, Bogart, I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Human Racing

Pop, new wave, synth-pop, pop rock. Rollo. Un 2.

"Wouldn't It Be Good" if all of the album was of the same quality as that song and "I Won't Let the Sun Go Down on Me"...

More painfully average 80s music with one big hit and a whole bunch of nothing. Sorry, not a fan in the slightest.

I find it hard to believe that someone listened to the 1001+ albums, then thought "You know what's missing? That Nik Kershaw album!"

A very average 80’s album, I thought they were enough of those on the original list.

80s synth landfill hardly worthy of comment.

1 star. Not because it is terrible. It just doesn’t belong on this list. A couple of pop hits does not an album make. Ironically I was a fan back in the day! My brother once called me out for wearing my runners untied a la Nic K. Highly embarrassing.