Track Listing

1. Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry
2. Who'll Stop The Rain
3. Let Me Go
4. Key To The World
5. Temptation
6. Come Live With Me
7. Lady Ice And Mr Hex
8. We Live So Fast
9. Best Kept Secret
10. Let Me Go
11. Who'll Stop The Rain
12. Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry
13. Come Live With Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12725 in Music
• Released on: 2006-08-07
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

THE THREE PROFESSORS OF SYNTH POP
Heaven 17 made intelligent, catchy and classic singles. They pushed the envelope on what could be acheived with a sequencer and a synth and, in frontman Glenn Gregory, they had a singer with a totally unique voice.
The Luxury Gap is Heaven 17's second album and the record that truely broke the band big in the Uk and across Europe.
Of course the big hit was the magnificent 'Temptation' - it still sounds great today and is totally unique. Driving drums and funky bassline, huge operatic harmonies from the band and Carole Kenyon's wonderful vocals. 'Temptation' is without doubt one of the key British singles of the early 80's and deserved to make number 1 (it peaked at no. 2). 'Come Live With Me' also graced the top 5 and is almost as suductive - massive chorus, smart and slightly creepy lyrics and Gregory's spot on lead vocal.
But there was always more to H17 than just the hits - 'Let Me Go' and the storming 'Key To The World' are both underated gems and 'Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry' is the sound of a band having fun. There are some lazy fillers, and the lyrics often veer from smart to nonsensicle, but there wasn't any other band around at the time who could mix live instruments and electronics together with such panache. In Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware Heaven 17 also had visionary studio boffins who were happy to experiment within the mainstream and literally 'invent' as they went along.
That The Luxury Gap still holds up 25 years later is recommendation enough.

Still a pleasure after all these years
I have loved this album since it came out way back in the time when you were faced with the choice of cassette or LP versions -1983. As audio cassettes were an uncertain and generaly unreliable way of listening to music (they generally either snapped in the player or intertwined themselves into some sort of mad plastic ball!),and I had bought the band's first album (Penthouse And Pavement - check it out)on cassette ,when The Luxury Gap came out I plumped for the LP version. I have now bought the CD version and am very plesed to have revisited this strange, yet sublime masterpiece.
The gloomy sound of a storm greets you at the start of Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry and a thumping bass line along with swirling electronica grace a story, which carries over very nicely from Penthouse and Pavement (wannabes and yuppies are the target here), some stunning piano work drive this song to its finale.
Who'll Stop The Rain is another bass thumper (some very interesting and intricate chord changes here), with some very silly lyrics to boot.
Let Me Go is a fantastic song, encapsulating all that was great in 80s synthesizer music. A wonderful bass and drum combination, some great lyrics on this one, some brilliant use of synths,and a number of clever hooks add up to a mighty fine song - worth buying the album for this song alone.
Key To The World carries on in a similar vein to Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry, money making in the eighties (a culture which they were probably right to revile looking at the materialism which is rife nowadays). It has some strange uses of horns which somehow seem to pull the whole song together.
Temptation was, and probably always will be, Heaven 17's most famous song. This song seems to still be the staple diet of your general family disco. Carol Kenyon's marvelous vocal range, together with incredibly catchy, danceable music make this a classic.
Come Live With Me tells the story of a sugar daddy lamenting the age of his girlfriend. Sheer Brilliance.
Lady Ice And Mr Hex is a powerful drum and piano ballad. The piano is something special here.
We Live So Fast, is indeed a fast tune, a hi energy dance song, and whizzes along as the name implies. There are clever uses of drum breaks and keyboards all through this song.
The final track, after all my gushing about other songs here, is the best song by far and well worth waiting for. The song is a wonderfully swirling mass of orchestra, which coupled by Glenn Gregory's splendid vocals make this song one of the best, in my opinion, of Heaven 17's repertoire. Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh add a wonderful backing vocal, as well as some great percussion to enhance the song even further.
The Luxury Gap is a great record of a time when musical pioneers were venturing to many strange and unusual places. Heaven 17 - I salute you.

A near-classic album given deserved remastering - at last!
The opening thunderclap and pavement-slab scrapings hint at this being a dramatic, and far more produced, successor to their subliminal debut album. "Crushed By The Wheels" (album mix) is classic H17, political yet poppy, mainstream yet subversive. Other tracks that keep the listener wondering include "Lady Ice and Mr Hex", "Key To The World" (great BVs) and "The Best Kept Secret". Ofcourse "Temptation" is here, with Karol Kenyon delivering the goods (but never really credited) and so is the slightly pedestrian "Come Live With Me". However as a whole it never quite lives up to expectations - but meanders along at it's own pace.

This is one in a series of remasters approved and apparently checked by the band (according to their own website), although they were not involved in the actual remastering (Martyn, why not?). It's great to see Virgin now offering this treatment to the boys, after doing the honours with the League many years ago. "Penthouse" is their real classic, but this album is a good second (and still kept essentially to electronics and bass guitar). The liner notes and photos/artwork are pretty good, if a little indulgent (ie not really sticking to the music on the cd at times) and make this a worthwhile addition for any fan.

However, why do such reissues invariably include a tracklisting mistake? The bonus "dub" of "Who'll Stop The Rain" is in fact the vocal extended remix (which the liner notes accidentally stumble across!). The US 12" (promo) dub mix (which is an extended re-edit with most of the vocals taken out) is 6.53 mins and certainly not present on this cd! This, and the fact the band had no real input into the sleeve notes, results in 4 stars - but don't let that spoil the real music on this album!