Comments for Thompson Twins, Heres To Future Days

Personally, this is my favorite Thompson Twins album. This is the much delayed, and at the time, much anticipated follow-up to their international breakthrough album, "Into The Gap". Much delayed because during the time this album was being put together back in early 1985, a lot of things started to go wrong for the Twins. Due to scheduling conflicts and a heavy 16-hour day workload, planned tours and scheduled releases of brand new singles were being postponed, and fans, especially the British ones, were starting to get a little annoyed. These days much of this is now blamed on bad management strategies, only focussing on how much money can be made instead of creating good music, but it's hard to say now. The group had not taken a break when they ended their mammoth world tour in support of "Into The Gap" in late 1984, and immediately started recording the new album. They ended up releasing a new single in November of that year (barely 2 months after the tour ended!!!) called "Lay Your Hands On Me" and spent most of the beginning of '85 finishing the new LP, with Tom Bailey acting as sole producer. All this caught up with him that Spring when he collapsed from exhaustion. After resting for a few weeks in Bardados, Nile Rodgers was brought in to help finish the job. Although Nile has a very clean-cut distinctive sound, the Thompson Twins sound was still firmly in place, but Nile gave it a more rougher edge than the "Gap" LP. For instance, he totally revamped "Lay Your Hands On Me" which by the time the album was finished in late Summer, was not yet released in North America. The original version still stayed true to the "less is more" Thompson Twins sound as on the "Gap" LP (which the late Alex Sadkin had produced) with dominant synths, tuned percussion, etc...but Nile stripped Alannah Currie's and Joe Leeway's backing vocals away and replaced them with New York's "Harlem Hobo Choir". Then remixed the whole track to give it a more organic feel and threw in a guitar solo for good measure...what an improvement! To this day it's still my favorite Thompson Twins song ever. This showed that the Twins were able to produce strong pop songs, and there are plenty more examples on this album. The whole theme around this album, "Here's To Future Days", revolved around optimism, and has all sorts of full, tightly arranged songs that are a pure joy to listen to. First the Twins had returned to dance oriented marterial with the opeing track, "Don't Mess With Doctor Dream", with it's "ooo-ooo-ow" intro it knocks you right out of your seat! It was written after they were offered heroin by 8-9 year old kids when they were living in Ireland...this made the Twins rethink their part in recreational drug use and the song was a reaction to this. The title track, "Future Days" includes the Hobo Choir again, and surprise surprise, show a SOULFUL side to the Twins and they pull it off quite nicely. A short powerful ditty, if you will... Included only on North American versions of the LP, is "Roll Over". This was a single the Twins were originally going to release at the time of Tom's collapse but after the ordeal Tom refused to release it. Apparently they regretted writing this song (God only knows why, since it's probably one of the BEST songs they've ever written!) and they saw it a sort of a bad omen meaning this song meant bad luck? Whatever. It's a dead shame it was never released. It could have been huge. "Revolution", the cover of the Beatles song. Hmmmm...this was apparently a "trowaway" track that ended up on the album. Alannah Currie noted in a 1987 inerview that this was recorded after they all read a bio on John Lennon and ended up being fascinated with him at the time. It's a very polished version and not very "Thompson Twins" at all, but it could have been worse. It was released as a single in the UK and didn't do very well...but the 12" Extended Version is incredible! "King For A Day" is another great song on the LP. It was originally the B-side to the single "Roll Over" and was actually called "Fools In Paradise" and had slightly different lyrics, but after Nile gave it guitar it still bounced out as one of the best tracks and became a top ten single in the US. "Love Is The Law" is totally Thompson Twins. It starts with a sampled sound of Coca-Cola being poured but arranged in a sample rhythm and repeated each time before the chorus starts. Way cool, man...happy cheery Thompson Twins pop all the way! "Emperor's Clothes (Part 1)" is a Bailey ballad that's very sweet and calming. There was never a "Part 2" by the way... "Tokyo" was inspired by their tour of Japan of course..another bright, happy song with a zany bridge before the synth solo...love it! "You Killed The Clown" is another favourite track of mine. Tom once said it was "written with Aretha Franklin in mind." It starts with a soft sax intro with gentle, very very soulful keyboard (Yamaha DX-7 chimes) throughout the song and Tom's unusually understated vocals. This should have been a single, and Tom's guitar solo is surprisingly loose. The one few times that the Twins actually gave in to abandonment, which is somehting they lost with later albums. The final track, "Breakaway" is not on the vinyl LP but was a "bonus track" on CD and cassette. This one is about being far away from someone and almost being able to still touch/hear them like they were there. Beautiful.... Mind you this review is pretty long in the tooth, but it's one of my favorite albums of all time and I wanted to do it justice. I just hope that today the Twins don't look back and say "I hate that album, I regret making it". That would be such a shame as I know what their attitude towards this era is, now that they're known (or hardly known as, quite understandably) as "Babble". They should be very very very proud of this LP. If I had put it together, I'd be, damn sure I would!

I agree to the opinion that HERE´S TO FUTURE DAYS was the best LP of T.T. but I have to say that the song BREAKWAY did appear in the LP, or at least here in Spain.

Contains the top ten hits "Lay Your Hands On Me" and "KingFor A Day," as well as a rendition of "Revolution"...