An excellent round-up of the 15 hit singles that, between late 1980 and fall 1984, saw Spandau Ballet transcend every prediction ever levelled at their music, and establish themselves among the most versatile British bands of their era. From the utterly convincing white boy Funk of the early “To Cut A Long Story Short”, “The Freeze”, “Musclebound” and “Chant No 1”, through the bodyswerve to ballad-ville that ushered in the age of “True” and “Gold”, and onto the near-anthemic guitar pop of “Only When You Leave” and “Highly Strung”, The Singles Collection suffers only from its failure to tell the tale in strict chronological fashion. Tracing the band’s development, after all, is almost as satisfying as having their first few pounding moments all lumped together at the beginning – for was there any more satisfying sound than that?
The problem with that approach, of course, is that many listeners might not even want to progress beyond them – arguably, late ’81’s “Paint Me Down” represented the peak of Spandau’s ambition, with the following year’s “Lifeline” sounding almost retrogressive when lined up alongside the band’s other 1982 releases. On the other hand, there was an entire new audience for whom Tony Hadley crooning “Only When You Leave” and “She Loved Like Diamond” represented an entire new beginning for a band that had hitherto been too badly scarred by the New Romantic brush – in which case, a very good case exists for this album (and every other Spandau Ballet collection) to be abruptly sliced in half, and reissued across two volumes, the Funky Years and the wimpy ones. But who would ever do that?
Review by Dave Thompson, Allmusic.com
Tracklist:
01. Gold (03:57)
02. Lifeline (03:23)
03. Round & Round (04:34)
04. Only When You Leave (04:48)
05. Instinction (03:34)
06. Highly Strung (04:11)
07. True (05:37)
08. Communication (03:25)
09. I’ll Fly For You (05:12)
10. To Cut A Long Story Short (03:21)
11. Chant No 1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On) (04:05)
12. She Loved Like Diamond (02:54)
13. Paint Me Down (03:42)
14. The Freeze (03:30)
15. Musclebound (03:57)
EAC extraction logfile from 8. October 2010, 1:12
Spandau Ballet / The Singles Collection
Used drive : PLEXTOR DVDR PX-716A Adapter: 0 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No
Read offset correction : 30
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : Yes
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:Program Files (x86)FLACflac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T “ARTIST=%a” -T “TITLE=%t” -T “ALBUM=%g” -T “DATE=%y” -T “TRACKNUMBER=%n” -T “GENRE=%m” -T “COMMENT=EAC FLAC -8” %s
TOC of the extracted CD
Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.50 | 3:58.70 | 50 | 17969
2 | 3:59.45 | 3:24.25 | 17970 | 33294
3 | 7:23.70 | 4:34.72 | 33295 | 53916
4 | 11:58.67 | 4:49.73 | 53917 | 75664
5 | 16:48.65 | 3:35.32 | 75665 | 91821
6 | 20:24.22 | 4:12.40 | 91822 | 110761
7 | 24:36.62 | 5:38.55 | 110762 | 136166
8 | 30:15.42 | 3:25.68 | 136167 | 151609
9 | 33:41.35 | 5:12.25 | 151610 | 175034
10 | 38:53.60 | 3:21.12 | 175035 | 190121
11 | 42:14.72 | 4:05.25 | 190122 | 208521
12 | 46:20.22 | 2:54.33 | 208522 | 221604
13 | 49:14.55 | 3:42.60 | 221605 | 238314
14 | 52:57.40 | 3:30.70 | 238315 | 254134
15 | 56:28.35 | 3:57.60 | 254135 | 271969
Range status and errors
Selected range
Filename E:mtorrent_flacSpandau Ballet – The Singles CollectionSpandau Ballet – The Singles Collection.wav
Peak level 100.0 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0619E847
Copy CRC 0619E847
Copy OK
No errors occurred
AccurateRip summary
Track 1 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [5BEF4FE7], AccurateRip returned [1973D1E7]
Track 2 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [AF490771], AccurateRip returned [95850293]
Track 3 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [46F80652], AccurateRip returned [2AD29577]
Track 4 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [CA4BC2BF], AccurateRip returned [0D5AC735]
Track 5 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [2A1E24A8], AccurateRip returned [E6F31D22]
Track 6 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [B98766B1], AccurateRip returned [5F10D09C]
Track 7 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [A84EA884], AccurateRip returned [3B6B69A1]
Track 8 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [7CC2CD4C], AccurateRip returned [AFE289BC]
Track 9 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [F16C2CD6], AccurateRip returned [49537646]
Track 10 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [D733F36D], AccurateRip returned [98EBCB72]
Track 11 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [252D0E33], AccurateRip returned [08F60307]
Track 12 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [4E757537], AccurateRip returned [01A9E27E]
Track 13 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [418E6DA4], AccurateRip returned [16F3EAC5]
Track 14 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [29A3DD9B], AccurateRip returned [E3E857F1]
Track 15 cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 10) [A792D8ED], AccurateRip returned [FB017047]
No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database
End of status report
log date: 2014-08-02 22:34:40
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Spandau Ballet / The Singles Collection
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR Peak RMS Duration Track
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DR14 0.00 dB -16.51 dB 3:59 01-Gold
DR13 0.00 dB -15.84 dB 3:24 02-Lifeline
DR13 0.00 dB -15.26 dB 4:35 03-Round & Round
DR13 0.00 dB -14.99 dB 4:50 04-Only When You Leave
DR12 -1.05 dB -15.52 dB 3:35 05-Instinction
DR13 0.00 dB -13.89 dB 4:13 06-Highly Strung
DR13 0.00 dB -14.68 dB 5:39 07-True
DR14 0.00 dB -16.43 dB 3:26 08-Communication
DR14 0.00 dB -15.62 dB 5:12 09-I’ll Fly For You
DR14 0.00 dB -15.43 dB 3:21 10-To Cut A Long Story Short
DR14 0.00 dB -15.23 dB 4:05 11-Chant No 1 (I Don’t Need This Pressure On)
DR12 -0.29 dB -14.04 dB 2:54 12-She Loved Like Diamond
DR13 0.00 dB -14.83 dB 3:43 13-Paint Me Down
DR14 0.00 dB -14.88 dB 3:31 14-The Freeze
DR13 0.00 dB -15.09 dB 3:58 15-Musclebound
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Number of tracks: 15
Official DR value: DR13
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 850 kbps
Codec: FLAC
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