Happy Families | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 24 September 1982 | |||
Recorded | February–August 1982 | |||
Studio |
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Genre | ||||
Length | 40:29 | |||
Label | London | |||
Producer | Mike Howlett | |||
Blancmange chronology | ||||
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Singles from Happy Families | ||||
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Happy Families is the debut studio album by English synth-pop band Blancmange, released on 24 September 1982 by London Records. It peaked at No. 30 on the UK Albums Chart, aided by the success of the album's third single, "Living on the Ceiling", released the following month, which became Blancmange's breakthrough hit, reaching No. 7 in the UK Singles Chart. A re-recorded version of the album, titled Happy Families Too... , was released in 2013. [1]
Initial pressings of the album in 1982 contained the original version of "Waves" – on later pressings and on the subsequent CD issues this version was replaced by the 7" single version, which had been remixed by Denis Weinrich and the band's manager John Owen Williams, and included re-recorded vocals and a string section arranged by Linton Naiff. The original version remained unavailable on any format until its inclusion on the 2012 compilation album The Very Best of Blancmange . The Canadian release of the album had a slightly rearranged running order and included a special mix of the song "Blind Vision", released as a single in May 1983 and which appeared on the group's second studio album Mange Tout in the UK in 1984.
In 2008 Edsel Records reissued Happy Families as a remastered and expanded version titled Happy Families... Plus. This version of the album added six bonus tracks to the original ten-track album: the extended versions of the singles "God's Kitchen", "Feel Me" and "Living on the Ceiling"; two instrumental mixes of "Feel Me"; and the instrumental track "Business Steps" (originally the B-side of "Waves"). However, Happy Families... Plus featured the 7" single versions of not just "Waves" but also "Living on the Ceiling", rather than the original album versions.
Excerpts of the songs "Living on the Ceiling" and "Sad Day" featured on one side of a flexi disc given away free with the issue of Melody Maker dated 24 April 1982. The other side of the disc featured the song "Born Every Minute" by the Passage.
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [2] |
Melody Maker | average [3] |
NME | favourable [4] |
Smash Hits | 7/10 [5] |
Critical reception for Happy Families was mixed, with some reviewers feeling the album trod a sometimes unsuccessful path between experimental aspirations and commercial sensibilities. Melody Maker stated that "touting the chalk and cheese, odd couple image, [Arthur and Luscombe]'s misfit marriage of experimentalism and unprepossessing pop was always in grave danger of belittling itself into an English Eighties parody of Sparks, parodying Joy Division, aping Depeche Mode... Happy Families, their debut album, is every bit the entertaining disappointment that anyone familiar with Blancmange's nervous live shows had a right to expect... Their brave schizophrenia is invariably self-defeating, their adventurously varied song treatments befuddling where a more open, honest approach could have unearthed brilliance." [3]
NME said that "Happy Families is a calmly assured collection of work: maybe not stamped with greatness, quite, but there's not a number in the whole ten that's without appeal, intelligence and warmth... There's impressive, though never overstated, drama in their delivery and winning ingenuity in their arrangements: a nicely controlled excitement... the flaws are minor and the merits are major." [4] Smash Hits felt that the album "occupies a curious no-man's land between near criminal stylistic nicking from a cast of thousands (everyone from OMD to Yazoo, from Simple Minds to Talking Heads) and [the] nagging near-certainty that the guilty pair have real talent... meanwhile their good taste in pilfering is well worth investigating." [5]
All songs written and composed by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe.
Side one
Side two
Side one
Side two
Disc one
Disc two
Disc three
Credits are adapted from the Happy Families liner notes. [6]
Blancmange
Additional musicians
Production and artwork
Chart (1982–1983) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report) [7] | 17 |
Canadian Albums ( RPM ) [8] | 98 |
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [9] | 13 |
UK Albums (OCC) [10] | 30 |
Region | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
---|---|---|---|---|
United Kingdom | 24 September 1982 | London Records | LP/picture disc LP | SH 8552/SHPD 8552 |
cassette | KSAC 8552 | |||
1987 | CD | 810 123-2 | ||
1 September 2008 | Edsel Records | remastered and expanded CD | EDSS 1026 | |
4 August 2017 | Edsel Records | Deluxe 3CD Media Book Edition | EDSL0001 |
Blancmange are an English synth-pop band formed in Harrow, London, in 1979. The band were a duo for much of their career, composed of Neil Arthur (vocals) and Stephen Luscombe (keyboards). They came to prominence in the early 1980s, releasing four UK top-20 singles: "Living on the Ceiling", "Waves", "Blind Vision" and "Don't Tell Me". They released three studio albums during that decade: Happy Families (1982), Mange Tout (1984) and Believe You Me (1985).
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"Living on the Ceiling" is a song by English synth-pop band Blancmange. It was released as the band's third single in 1982, taken from their debut studio album Happy Families. It became the band's first UK Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart and being certified Silver by the BPI for sales in excess of 200,000 copies. The single also reached No. 5 on the Australian Singles Chart.
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"Feel Me" is a song by English synth-pop duo Blancmange, released on 23 July 1982 as the second single from their debut studio album Happy Families (1982). It was written by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, and produced by Mike Howlett. "Feel Me" reached No. 46 in the UK and remained on the charts for five weeks.
"Waves" is a song by English synth-pop duo Blancmange, released on 21 January 1983 as the fourth and final single from their debut studio album Happy Families (1982). Written by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, and produced by Mike Howlett, "Waves" reached No. 19 in the UK and remained in the charts for nine weeks.
"Blind Vision" is a song by English synth-pop band Blancmange, released in April 1983 as the lead single from their second studio album Mange Tout (1984). Written by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, and produced by John Luongo, "Blind Vision" reached No. 10 in the UK and remained in the charts for eight weeks. A music video was filmed to promote the single, which received light rotation on MTV.
"God's Kitchen" is a song by English synth-pop duo Blancmange, released in March 1982 as a double A-side with "I've Seen the Word". It was the lead single from the duo's debut studio album Happy Families (1982). "God's Kitchen" and "I've Seen the Word" was written by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, and produced by Mike Howlett. The single reached No. 65 in the UK and remained on the charts for two weeks.
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