Fine Young Cannibals

ファイン・ヤング・カニバルズのデビュー・アルバムがデラックス盤で再発!

ビルボードNo.1ヒット「She Drives Me Crazy」でおなじみのイギリスのダンス・ポップ・ユニット、ファイン・ヤング・カニバルズの記念すべきデビュー・アルバムが初のリマスター&レア曲多数をボーナストラックとして追加収録した2枚組で再発に。

80年代なかばから90年代にかけて活躍した英バーミンガム出身の3人組ダンス・ポップ・ユニット、ファイン・ヤング・カニバルズの記念すべきデビュー・アルバム。ファースト・シングルの「Johnny Come Home」はUKチャートのみならず米ビルボードでもいきなりのトップ10入り。エルヴィス・プレスリーがヒットさせたことでおなじみの「Suspicious Minds」のポップなカバー(ブロンスキ・ビートのジミー・ソマーヴィルがゲスト参加)も収録。オリジナル発売は1985年。35年を経て実に初のリマスター再発。リミックス、ライヴ・テイクやシングルB面曲など29曲をボーナストラックとして追加収録した2枚組。

When Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger split from the rest of the English Beat to form General Public, Andy Cox and Dave Steele originally advertised on MTV for a new lead singer for the Beat. When that didn't pan out (although it did work for Wall of Voodoo), Cox and Steele hooked up with the unique and soulful singer Roland Gift and formed the Fine Young Cannibals. Though the trio first hit the mass U.S. consciousness with 1989's electronic dance-pop The Raw and the Cooked, their 1985 debut was a soul-jazz pop charmer that's more low key but every bit as entertaining. Along the lines of early Everything But the Girl (the two groups share a producer, Robin Millar) with a heavier Motown influence, the songs on Fine Young Cannibals are uniformly strong. The singles "Johnny Come Home" (a plea to a runaway that sounds like the Beat's ska stripped down to its tense and obsessive essentials) and "Blue" (one of the more oblique and successful anti-Margaret Thatcher tracks of its era) are terrific, but album tracks like the casually devastating "Funny How Love Is" and the manic "Like a Stranger" (which incongruously ends with a female chorus shrieking "You've been too long in an institution!" repeatedly while Gift tries out his Otis Redding impression) are even better. The album's highlight, though, is a reworking of "Suspicious Minds" (with scarifying backing vocals by Jimmy Somerville) that, while it doesn't replace Elvis' version, certainly takes the song into an interesting new direction. Although often overlooked, especially in the U.S., in the wake of their massively successful follow-up, Fine Young Cannibals is a powerful and satisfying debut. The U.S. CD adds two extended remixes of "Johnny Come Home" and "Suspicious Minds." ~ Stewart Mason