Oingo Boingo
Boingo Alive" (1988)
Disc: 1
1. Dead Man's Party
2. Dead Or Alive
3. No Spill Blood
4. Stay
5. Cinderella Undercover
6. Home Again
7. Help Me
8. Just Another Day
9. Only Makes Me Laugh
10. My Life
11. My Life Nothing To Fear (But Fear Itself)
12. Not My Slave
13. We Close Our Eyes
14. Elevator Man
15. Return Of The Dead Man
Disc: 2
1. Winning Side
2. Wild Sex (In The Working Class)
3. Grey Matter
4. Private Life
5. Gratitude
6. No One Live Forever
7. Mama
8. Capitalism
9. Who Do You Want To Be
10. Sweat
11. Violent love
12. On The Outside
13. Only A Lad
14. Goodbye-Goodbye
15. Country Sweat
16. Return Of The Dead Man 2
This is not a true "live" album in the classic sense. The band is in the studio, but they played down the set "live" rather than engineering and layering the heck out of it.
So what you get are the best songs in their book at the time, played tight, hard and with extra bite. Many of the cuts here are head and shoulders above the "original" album cuts (and I loved those). Uptempo, with a nice horn punch and a surprising variety of styles and sounds; there isn't a dog on either disc. Lots of bites, but with more tasty pop hooks than any colection around. If you're considering adding some boingo to your cd colection, this is the perfect place to start. -----------
Every review says it and its true, this is the best Oingo Boingo collection. It improves on the studio arrangements by infusing a live vibe, while not actually being a live album (in fact, they toured to promote this so-called live album.) However, this is just the best way to hear this band. Each song is not only note perfect and frenetic as a spastic cat, but has the added benefit of elusively evading the worst of the late 80s production "values" (read "follies") of the time. ----------
Danny Elfman may be better known for his motion picture scoring ("Beetlejuice," "Edward Scissorhands," "Spider-Man," "Big Fish," "Chocolate Factory," etc., ad infinitum) than his work with the Mystic Knights at -this- late date, but here indeed is the evidence of his ability to write some real killer dance tunes and press his comrades through a studio concert.
The truth is, he -had- to. Boingo was a cult phenom and little more from the late '70s to the late '80s. An art band playing clubs for audiences too sophisticated -- and demanding -- to put up with "commercial" music, even including the pretty remarkable stuff MTV and KROQ were laying on us in '82 and '83. (They weren't alone: LA seemed to have one of these bands on every other block at the time.) As recording artists, however, they were just -too- sophisticated... and, well, maybe too -nerdy-. For the image-obsessed marketers, anyway.
"Alive" was not Dan's idea. It was the -marketing- department's. "Damn. They're -good-," was the general concensus at MCA at the time. "Why aren't they making us more money?" Live albums provided a bit more of an excuse to recycle the product than re-packs, so... here we are.
Good thing. The studio recordings simply were -not- indicative of this band's ability to amaze on stage at The Central or Wong's West. (This happens to a -lot- of bands, of course. Engineers are human, and doing stimulants for eight months at a time while grinding out three dozen LPs is likely to have it's consequences for -someone-.) Big venues were few and far between for the Boingo's by '87, soooooo, back to the sound stage.
The results, much as is the case on the best live albums in a sold-out field house, are much improved vs. the orginals. In this case, they are -scintillating-. "Alive" is a musician's album, but only if you're a pretty ambitious, unthreatened and self-assured musician. This stuff is -dense-, complex and clever, tune after tune after tune... at least on "side one" (and here and there on "side two).
The hooks are relentless. The lyrics are spiffy. The arrangements are -impressive-. Hell, the -sound- of it all is just -wonderful-.
(I was running a waterpark in Palm Springs at the time "Alive" arrived. The good folks at Budweiser had elected to use us for the annual MTV Spring Break show and had set up a concert stage and a 25K-watt reinforcement system. I had the engineer stick my cream-colored cassette in the player just to hear a bit of it over that huge boom box. He liked it so much he let the whole thing play through for everyone in the place. The reviews from all those frat rats were pretty favorable.)
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Bar none, this is the GREATEST collection of Boingo music available. Though technically not a live album (no crowd -- trust me, you won't miss 'em -- just the band on a soundstage), this set captures the energy, power and keen songwriting abilities of Boingo at their peak. The set includes old favorites and a couple new (at least at the time) tunes that'll keep ya hummin' and serves as witness to the dynamic, vital sound created by Oingo Boingo in the early '80's.