The Shadows Albums (20)
What The Critics Say
So long, farewell...the Shadows had been around so long that it felt like they'd go on forever. But their tours had been growing more sporadic as the years piled up behind them and, when 2004 brought the news that they were finally closing the lid on their career, it was difficult not to shed a tear for auld lang's syne. Of course they wouldn't really be gone; almost from the moment the first CD fell off the pressing plant, the Shadows have been subject to one of the most vociferous reissue/remastering campaigns of all. All their absence would really mean was, no more "new" albums to compete with the oldies. Well, almost. There would be one more. Recorded on that final tour, to be spread across both a two-CD package and an excellent DVD, Final Tour is the last word in Shadows finery, a 42-track behemoth that effectively tells the band's entire story, from the early days of omnipotence ("Apache," "Frightened City," "Man of Mystery," through the 1970s renaissance "Let me Be the One," "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," "Oxygene 5") and most points in between and thereafter. There's even a tip of the hat to the Man Without Whom...a clutch of Cliff Richard hits, "Summer Holiday" and "Bachelor Boy" included, turn up towards the end of the show, to remind us how the Shadows first came into our lives. Beautifully recorded and (needless to say) exquisitely played and arranged, Final Tour is the ultimate greatest-hits collection, played out before an audience that knows every chord. These drawn-out farewell recordings are normally something to avoid at all costs. But this one, like the band that recorded it, is priceless. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
'Moonlight Shadows'
Release Date 4/4/2000
Tracks 16
Label Polygram International
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
The Shadows' first trip to the Top Ten of the album charts for seven years since the golden days of their late-'70s revival, Moonlight Shadows was designed for the generation that preferred its music uncomplicated and easy. Despite the accepted brilliance of Hank Marvin in getting a very distinctive sound out of his instrument, here was an album with 16 tracks of contemporary hits ranging from the very recent (at the time of its release) "Every Breath You Take," "Hello," "Against All Odds," and "I Just Called to Say I Love You" back to the 1960s songs "Hey Jude," "A Whiter Shade of Pale," and "Nights in White Satin," all played with the minimum of effort (don't the great ones always make it seem easy) by Hank on the guitar with his trademark reverb effect, backed by an unobtrusive rhythm section. By mass marketing an album such as this with prime-time TV advertising aimed not at Shadows fans (for by the mid-'80s they were a little thin on the ground) but at the easy listening, late-night, after-dinner party crowd, Polydor had a winner. Not that this would thrust the Shadows back in to the limelight; it would be another four years before they had another Top Ten album (Reflection) backed by a very similar campaign. But this was the beginning of a trend by most of the record companies that -- having exhausted their supplies of artists to promote greatest-hits albums -- would concentrate on TV advertising of relatively anonymous instrumental recordings featuring saxophones, pan pipes, and harps to supplement their products by mainstream artists. ~ Sharon Mawer, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The Shadows' final album, released in time for Christmas 1984, and surely little more than a contract filling obligation, eleven songs that exist for no better reason than to draw you one track closer to the end of side two. In a way, the lackluster sheen that replaces the band's old brilliance had been growing ever since the band signed to Polydor in 1980; this was their third album for the label, and each one was a little (lot!) worse than its predecessor. Be especially merciless and you could say the same thing for every LP they'd released since reforming in 1975. But Guardian Angel was the bottom of a barrel that didn't have a bottom any more, and when Bruce Welch wrote his biography five years later, he didn't even mention this album. One doesn't blame him in the slightest. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Twenty-five years of the Shadows had raced by in a blur of hits. Both in their own right, and as the backing band behind so many of Cliff Richard's greatest recordings, the Shadows had left such an indelible mark on the British rock landscape that kids who weren't even born for "Apache" couldn't help but wish them well on their birthday. And how did the band repay that gratitude? With what could easily be described as the most calculatingly grim album of their career. It's not only because it opens with a soul-destroying cover of that most ghastly of ballads, Toto's hateful "Africa". Nor that their versions of instrumental classics "Diamonds" and "Time Is Tight" were so swathed in Eighties production that it was hard to believe they didn't share a similar heritage. XXV failed because the band just didn't seem to care. Celebrating his own anniversary with the Silver/Rock'n'Roll Silver album, Cliff Richard went out of his way to prove that he held past and present equally holy, with one disc of generally enjoyable new songs, and one of genuinely cracking old rockers. The Shadows, though, just made exactly the same album they could have recorded at any time; it had no sense of purpose, no sense of occasion and, ultimately, it gave you no reason to play it again. A wasted opportunity. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
First, the album title. After no less than 23 years at EMI, first on the Columbia subsidiary and then on the parent label, the Shadows upped and switched to Polydor in 1980. Change of Address was the first fruit of the new union, but thankfully the address was all that had changed. Anybody who picked up on the band in 1975 following their Eurovision inspired reunion would have walked into this new record knowing what to expect, and would probably have been pleased to find it -- a dozen tracks that took the usual approach of mixing lighthearted band originals with a few familiar covers, nothing too demanding, nothing exhausting, just another drifting soundtrack for your next cocktail party. When it's good, it's great. As usual, the vocal tracks tend to serve more as light relief than anything else. But a sweet version of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" makes you wish they could have recorded it back in the 1960s, so effortlessly does it blend the original's stately magic with their own twanging glee, while there's also an unexpected dip into the Jean-Michel Jarre songbook, and a version of "Oxygene 5" which, in replacing the Frenchman's synths with guitars, proves just what a timeless melody Jarre composed. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
1977 probably wasn't a good year for any returning heroes to be trying to make an impression, especially if they wanted anyone to remember what they'd done. In a year that was devoured by punk rock, and which history recalls only for that monster's most fiery antics, a group like the Shadows wasn't even an irrelevance. They weren't noticed. And so Tasty came and went, the Shadows album that time forgot, and it was only if you really, really cared about the band that you hunted it down, dropped the needle on the vinyl, and wondered why you'd bothered. Firmly into easy listening territory now, the Shadows had so thoroughly perfected their signature sound that nothing could break through it. The sweetly chiming guitar lead, each note resonating in its own musical universe; the gentle rhythms percolating behind it; they could have recorded any song in the world, and it would have sounded just like you'd expect. So "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" bleeds into "Walk Don't Run," "Superstar" dances the "Cricket Bat Boogie," and even "Honky Tonk Women," a song that really shouldn't have easily succumbed to their charms, becomes just another gentle drift. None of which is to say Tasty is not a tasty treat. Play it, and you can feel your body melting into the moods; you don't even need to think about it, it just takes you over and does what it will. Which was a remarkable achievement in 1977, and is still a surprise today. Nobody would ever rate Tasty in their Top 20 Shadows albums. But it's certainly one of the most archetypal of them all. ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide
