Track Listing

1. Madame Butterfly
2. Fans
3. Carmen (L'oiseau Rebelle)
4. Boys Chorus
5. Lauretta (O Mio Babbino Cara)
6. Death Of A Butterfly

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5343 in Music
• Released on: 1985-04-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: EP
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
Certainly one of the more bizarre major label releases of 1984, Malcolm McLaren's FANS has proven to be remarkably influential in ways that possibly not even its creator could have expected. On FANS, McLaren--who plays no instruments and sings even less than he did on his groundbreaking debut DUCK ROCK--combines opera, soul, and hip-hop in an entirely new (at the time) blend. Storylines and arias from CARMEN, TURANDOT, and MADAME BUTTERFLY are melded to slinky electronics. Oddly enough, the combination works.
The singers, some of whom are operatic, and some of whom sound more like divas ofthe Whitney Houston variety, put over the material completely straight. There's not a trace of camp here, and the music, with its slow beats, woozy string samples and oddball accents, prefigures the rise of trip-hop by close to a decade. Put FANS beside a Moby album and you might have trouble telling them apart.

Customer Reviews

Puccini Rocks and Bizet too
This slender (30 mins long) CD is an oddity. Genre unknown is the best description -You will either love it or be completely indifferent to it. If you love it you may well find yourself furtively entering the word Puccini in Amazon's Search box and actually buying a classical CD.
Mac has taken some of his favourite tunes and reworked them for the eighties,nineties and so on.
Interspersed and completely in simpatico with classical tracks are rock soundtracks which compliment and expand the originals wonderfully
Lorreta, particularly, is breathtakingly beautiful and the highspot for me of a lovely CD.

Punk to Opera
I was first introduced to Malcom Mcclaren's Fans in the early 90s by a friend in Wales. To say that it moved me in a way nothing had before sounds like a cliche, but never the less true. I have since explored down a previously self inhibited opera route, and now Bizet, Pucinni, Verdi and more, are on my regular listening list. I find it ironic that the inventor of Punk introduced me to Opera. A true classic.

Brilliant
I heard this album a long time ago and have never forgoten it. I saw Madam Butterfly last week and I have had to buy this album as well as the Pucini version.