WAIATA / CORROBOREE

Originally called Corrobree in Australia and Waiata in the rest of the world, this is like a sister album to True Colours , there are elements of prog in here especially Eddies input, such as the new wave influenced prog instrumental and the song Albert of India which adds eclecticism to this album. Some songs are pretty lame new wave dance pieces such as Tim's I don't Wanna Dance and Hard Act to Follow, but again Eddie's keys keep even those songs in contact with prog. Both the masterpiece and most frustrating song on this album is the classic HISTORY NEVER REPEATS, a great song in terms of Neil's songcraft, what is frustrating about this song is that its beginnig, no screaming to be either a longer more epic piece with a decent intrumental slap bang in the middle of it, or else this album should have been made into a concept album with the song HISTORY NEVER REPEATS as the reocurring theme. But lets face it this album was released at a really stupid time in music, only singles mattered at this point and not artistic expansion. HISTORY NEVER REPEATS will leave you both thrilled and frustrated at the same time, check out the video of it downloaded onto this website and you'll see what I mean, its too condensed for such a great tune and Enz should have developed this song some more. The other pieces are new wave pop songs but slightly unorthodox with an added eclectism. Both ONE STEP AHEAD and HISTORY NEVER REPEATSwere reasonablyt successful singles, although nver quite making it into the states due to bad marketing. I think Neil shines moe than Tim in the songwriting department, Tim's more new wavy pieces seem more forced, I think he is more natural writing more reflective piece than catchy pop songs for which Neil is the master of, but when the work at their appropriate roles they really complkement each other. Not a terribly proggy album, but never the less still inspired songwriting, some of this album could have been truly frantastic if not for the fashoin at the time. I'm giving it three stars not essential because its leaning more on the new wave side of the fence than the prog, but some of this album has some real inspired and frustrating potential, it should also be noted that the record company was pressuring the boys to come up with a True Colours 2 since the US missed out and mayby that is the albums downfall less creative freedom and less risks. Fortunately Enz would get a bit more proggy on their next album and forget about trying to be stars. This album will interest Eno (his early poppier albums), Talking Heads and Kraftwerk fans (Eddies keys).