Forever Pop

by Aaron BadgleyAlphaville has always embraced technology and used it to produce music to show the coldness of the world. For this release, their cold, distant, sometimes frightening music has been remixed to fit into the sound and the vibes of 2001/2002. That does not mean that this is a party album, quite the opposite. This is dance music for the depressed 4 a.m. rave, and for the most part it is quite good. The remixes maintain the beauty of the original music, and the songs chosen easily lend themselves to the remix treatment. Mark Plati redoes "Red Rose" and comes close to bettering the original by adding a heavy dance beat combined with an eerie droning, which produces an overall uneasy feeling. A few of the remixes do not work, such as Eiffel 65's mix of "Big in Japan" (the mix of the song on the CD), due to straying too far away from the original song while not adding anything interesting to win over the listener. In this particular case, the song falls into Cher territory, which is somewhere an Alphaville song should never go. While many remix albums are marketing strategies for more money or lengthening the shelf life of an album (or artist), it is refreshing to know that when done correctly it sounds quite stunning. Keep listening after "Big in Japan" (the last listed track) for an uncredited remix of "Jerusalem," which is one of the most beautiful songs Alphaville has ever created, and the remix brings out that beauty. That song is worth the price of the CD alone.