Tyger reappraisal

[dreamerofdreams]

Just had a listen to Tyger for the first time in a wee while..still a good album & London's finale still gives goosebumps.

Not played it myself in an age. Must put it on my to bring to work tomorrow night list

[Flashpoint]

On the Tyger sleeve notes describing this time span it states........

"The success of their 1985 release Underwater Sunlight helped re establish the band in the eyes of many fans who had somewhat lost heart after the last couple of slightly below par albums on their long time home Virgin records"



Is this referring to Flashpoint and Firestarter then?, I ask as I have not heard them yet.

Flashpoint and Firestaerter wasn't on Virgin

I may be slightly biased but Flashpoint is killer. My favorite TD recording and I now have over 30 TD albums. I'd like to know which album they are talking about as I thought virgin and TD parted ways in 1983. Le Parc was successful IIRC and it predates Underwater Sunlight. Regarding Tyger it's the only TD album I ever owned that I never "upgraded" from my cassette copy as I never liked it. Maybe I'll pick up a used CD one day and give it another chance after all these years?

[24db]

As a side note. I think Le Parc marks the point where Jive Electro realised that TD weren't selling as many records as they did under Virgin in 74/75 (slightly shortsighted of them...but they were a young label so perhaps they thought of success as top 10 or nothing). They then promptly did exactly what Virgin had done at the end of TD's contract: ie get the band to record an album and then promote it so poorly that fans had to rely on spotting the new album in their local record shop, otherwise they had no idea the was a new album out at all. You can read into that whatever you want. There were some complaints about Le Parc from fans in the press. Graham High's 'Le Strop' letter in the December 1985 of E&MM springs to mind (apologies to Graham if he reads this). Although this prompted a bit of activity, both pro ("Dreamers Defended") and anti TD ("Dreamers Attacked") in response (again in E&MM's march issue of the following year). Even when the magazine covered TD's 1986 Paris Olympia gig, describing them as 'still the world's greatest electronic band'...they had to put a label on the front cover (again featuring TD) with the headline 'Is there room for this band in 1986'? Some things never change it seems. Build 'em up, knock 'em down

[24db]

Back to Tyger, I don't remember seeing any advertising for it at the time and only stumbled across it in a branch of Our Price by total accident (years later I found that Jive had done 'two' adverts for it, but by that time I'd left college and had stopped buying all of the UK music press as they hardly ever covered TD or EM anymore).

[Beaubourg]

Back to Tyger, I don't remember seeing any advertising for it at the time and only stumbled across it in a branch of Our Price by total accident (years later I found that Jive had done 'two' adverts for it, but by that time I'd left college and had stopped buying all of the UK music press as they hardly ever covered TD or EM anymore).

In my case, I had no idea it was even released until I stepped into a Providence, R.I. record shop and saw the poster hanging on the wall!

[epsilon75]

Back to Tyger, I don't remember seeing any advertising for it at the time and only stumbled across it in a branch of Our Price by total accident (years later I found that Jive had done 'two' adverts for it, but by that time I'd left college and had stopped buying all of the UK music press as they hardly ever covered TD or EM anymore).

In my case, I had no idea it was even released until I stepped into a Providence, R.I. record shop and saw the poster hanging on the wall!

I definitely remember seeing a Tyger poster somewhere,very striking and hard to miss

[hansx]

Back to Tyger, I don't remember seeing any advertising for it at the time and only stumbled across it in a branch of Our Price by total accident (years later I found that Jive had done 'two' adverts for it, but by that time I'd left college and had stopped buying all of the UK music press as they hardly ever covered TD or EM anymore).

In my case, I had no idea it was even released until I stepped into a Providence, R.I. record shop and saw the poster hanging on the wall!

I definitely remember seeing a Tyger poster somewhere,very striking and hard to miss

yes I had it for years in my sleepingroom, but after some years it crashed and I had to throw it away.

[epsilon75]

In my case, I had no idea it was even released until I stepped into a Providence, R.I. record shop and saw the poster hanging on the wall!

I definitely remember seeing a Tyger poster somewhere,very striking and hard to miss

yes I had it for years in my sleepingroom, but after some years it crashed and I had to throw it away.

I just found another

[hansx]

I definitely remember seeing a Tyger poster somewhere,very striking and hard to miss

yes I had it for years in my sleepingroom, but after some years it crashed and I had to throw it away.

I just found another

where?

[epsilon75]

yes I had it for years in my sleepingroom, but after some years it crashed and I had to throw it away.

I just found another

where?

In my cupboard

[genesis1964]

I just found another

where?

In my cupboard

Is that the never ending cupboard of surprises

[epsilon75]

where?

In my cupboard

Is that the never ending cupboard of surprises

It was actually in a large envelope which was inside a folder. There is always something turning up here Dave but mostly its junk

[genesis1964]

In my cupboard

Is that the never ending cupboard of surprises

It was actually in a large envelope which was inside a folder. There is always something turning up here Dave but mostly its junk

Sometimes the best surprises come from what we believe to be junk

[Tropylium]

Tyger is brilliant, but I still think that's despite the vocals, that is in no part thanks to them. Check your Berlin '87 fantapes and you'll probably agree that Tyger and Smile are compositionally boring, once the lyrics are taken away. Nothing but verse chorus verse chorus verse chorus. Such a shame. Songwriters TD are not.

London is much better with that but I'm also going to agree that the vocals are the worst there.

Further re: Berlin 87, 21stCCM1 from there blows the album version out of water.

[71 dB]

ALCHEMY OF THE HEART is one of my most favorite TD tracks.

LONDON is very strong too.

That's almost 27 minutes of brilliant music. The rest of the album is ok. Tyger is not TD's best effort but it is unique.