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Album Reviews
Album review: Claudia Brücken – Combined (ZTT/Salvo)
By Marc Samuels | Published on Tuesday 1 February 2011
Claudia Brücken is Europe’s first lady of electro-pop, with her DNA being easy to trace in everyone from Dot Allison to Goldfrapp, right though to today’s L-appendaged female pop aristocracy.
This best of is a neat idea and affords us the opportunity to revisit her material from 1984 through to the present day, firstly with Propaganda, whose three classic singles are all present here, through to her late 80s partnership with Thomas Leer as Act, her under-rated 1991 solo album (recently re-released and worth investigating in its own right) and her noughties renaissance as OneTwo, with OMD’s Paul Humphreys. There’s also some typically lush new tracks (with the dreamy Stephen Hague-produced single ‘Thank You’ being up there with the best things she’s ever done), which hopefully suggests this collection is an ellipsis rather than full stop to her career.
It’s not a definitive compilation (her 2005 album ‘Another Language’ with Andrew Poppy is overlooked whilst stellar collaborations with the likes of Oceanhead and Blank & Jones are sadly absent) but what we do have is an impeccable synopsis of one of the most distinctive voices in pop. MS
Physical release: 7 Feb
