Happy Families (album) explained

Happy Families
Type:studio
Artist:Blancmange
Cover:Blancmange - Happy Families.jpg
Border:yes
Recorded:February - August 1982
Studio:
  • CBS (London)
  • Battery (London)
Genre:
Label:London
Producer:Mike Howlett
Next Title:Mange Tout
Next Year:1984

Happy Families is the debut studio album by English synth-pop band Blancmange, released on 24 September 1982 by London Records. It peaked at No. 30 on the UK Albums Chart, aided by the success of the album's third single, "Living on the Ceiling", released the following month, which became Blancmange's breakthrough hit, reaching No. 7 in the UK Singles Chart. A re-recorded version of the album, titled Happy Families Too..., was released in 2013.[1]

Release

Initial pressings of the album in 1982 contained the original version of "Waves" – on later pressings and on the subsequent CD issues this version was replaced by the 7" single version, which had been remixed by Denis Weinrich and the band's manager John Owen Williams, and included re-recorded vocals and a string section arranged by Linton Naiff. The original version remained unavailable on any format until its inclusion on the 2012 compilation album The Very Best of Blancmange. The Canadian release of the album had a slightly rearranged running order and included a special mix of the song "Blind Vision", released as a single in May 1983 and which appeared on the group's second studio album Mange Tout in the UK in 1984.

In 2008 Edsel Records reissued Happy Families as a remastered and expanded version titled Happy Families... Plus. This version of the album added six bonus tracks to the original ten-track album: the extended versions of the singles "God's Kitchen", "Feel Me" and "Living on the Ceiling"; two instrumental mixes of "Feel Me"; and the instrumental track "Business Steps" (originally the B-side of "Waves"). However, Happy Families... Plus featured the 7" single versions of not just "Waves" but also "Living on the Ceiling", rather than the original album versions.

Melody Maker flexidisc

Excerpts of the songs "Living on the Ceiling" and "Sad Day" featured on one side of a flexi disc given away free with the issue of Melody Maker dated 24 April 1982. The other side of the disc featured the song "Born Every Minute" by the Passage.

Critical reception

Critical reception for Happy Families was mixed, with some reviewers feeling the album trod a sometimes unsuccessful path between experimental aspirations and commercial sensibilities. Melody Maker stated that "touting the chalk and cheese, odd couple image, [Arthur and Luscombe]'s misfit marriage of experimentalism and unprepossessing pop was always in grave danger of belittling itself into an English Eighties parody of Sparks, parodying Joy Division, aping Depeche Mode... Happy Families, their debut album, is every bit the entertaining disappointment that anyone familiar with Blancmange's nervous live shows had a right to expect... Their brave schizophrenia is invariably self-defeating, their adventurously varied song treatments befuddling where a more open, honest approach could have unearthed brilliance."

NME said that "Happy Families is a calmly assured collection of work: maybe not stamped with greatness, quite, but there's not a number in the whole ten that's without appeal, intelligence and warmth... There's impressive, though never overstated, drama in their delivery and winning ingenuity in their arrangements: a nicely controlled excitement... the flaws are minor and the merits are major." Smash Hits felt that the album "occupies a curious no-man's land between near criminal stylistic nicking from a cast of thousands (everyone from OMD to Yazoo, from Simple Minds to Talking Heads) and [the] nagging near-certainty that the guilty pair have real talent... meanwhile their good taste in pilfering is well worth investigating."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe.

1982 UK LP and cassette

Side one

  1. "I Can't Explain" – 4:00
  2. "Feel Me" – 5:07
  3. "I've Seen the Word" – 3:00
  4. "Wasted" – 4:17
  5. "Living on the Ceiling" – 4:11

Side two

  1. "Waves" – 4:07 (original version on early pressings of the album is 4:25 long)
  2. "Kind" – 3:56
  3. "Sad Day" – 4:05
  4. "Cruel" – 4:52
  5. "God's Kitchen" – 2:54

1982 Canadian version

Side one

  1. "Waves" – 4:07
  2. "Feel Me" – 5:07
  3. "I've Seen the Word" – 3:00
  4. "Wasted" – 4:17
  5. "Living on the Ceiling" – 4:11

Side two

  1. "Blind Vision" – 4:20
  2. "I Can't Explain" – 4:00
  3. "Kind" – 3:56
  4. "Sad Day" – 4:05
  5. "Cruel" – 4:52
  6. "God's Kitchen" – 2:54

2008 Happy Families... Plus CD

  1. "I Can't Explain" – 4:03
  2. "Feel Me" – 5:07
  3. "I've Seen the Word" – 3:00
  4. "Wasted" – 4:17
  5. "Living on the Ceiling" – 4:02
  6. "Waves" – 4:09
  7. "Kind" – 3:58
  8. "Sad Day" – 4:04
  9. "Cruel" – 4:52
  10. "God's Kitchen" – 2:57
  11. "Living on the Ceiling" (Extended Version) – 5:40
  12. "God's Kitchen" (12" Mix) – 4:29
  13. "Feel Me" (Extended 12" Version) – 7:01
  14. "Feel Me" (7" and 12" Instrumental) – 5:10
  15. "Business Steps" – 4:28
  16. "Feel Me" (US 12" Instrumental) – 5:22

2017 Edsel 3 CD Media Book Edition

Disc one

  1. "I Can't Explain" – 4:00
  2. "Feel Me" – 5:07
  3. "I've Seen the Word" – 3:00
  4. "Wasted" – 4:17
  5. "Living on the Ceiling" – 4:11
  6. "Waves" – 4:07
  7. "Kind" – 3:56
  8. "Sad Day" – 4:05
  9. "Cruel" – 4:52
  10. "God's Kitchen" – 2:56
  11. "Living On The Ceiling (Extended Version)" – 5:39
  12. "God's Kitchen (12" Mix)" – 4:28
  13. "Feel Me (12" Instrumental)" – 5:08
  14. "Waves (Original Version - No Strings)" – 4:22

Disc two

  1. "Sad Day (Original Version)" – 3:10
  2. "Feel Me (Extended 12" Version)" – 6:59
  3. "Business Steps" – 4:28
  4. "Black Bell (Demo)" – 4:22
  5. "Melodic Piece (Demo)" – 2:31
  6. "Your Hills (Rehearsal)" – 2:46
  7. "I Can't Explain (Demo)" – 3:20
  8. "Waves (Demo)" – 4:45
  9. "I've Seen the Word (1979 Demo)" – 3:06
  10. "Holland (Demo)" – 2:47
  11. "I've Seen the Word (Demo)" – 2:25
  12. "Feel Me (Mike Howlett Dub Version)" – 6:48

Disc three

  1. "I Would" – 4:06 [Radio 1 Session (13.2.82)]
  2. "Living on the Ceiling" – 3:13 [Radio 1 Session (13.2.82)]
  3. "Waves" – 4:01 [Radio 1 Session (13.2.82)]
  4. "Running Thin" – 2:20 [Radio 1 Session (13.2.82)]
  5. "God's Kitchen" – 2:54 [Radio 1 Session (5.6.82)]
  6. "Feel Me" – 5:19 [Radio 1 Session (5.6.82)]
  7. "Kind" – 3:48 [Radio 1 Session (5.6.82)]
  8. "Cruel" – 3:49 [Radio 1 Session (5.6.82)]
  9. "God's Kitchen" – 3:33 [In Concert, Paris Theatre (13.11.82)]
  10. "Living on the Ceiling" – 4:33 [In Concert, Paris Theatre (13.11.82)]
  11. "I've Seen the Word" – 3:36 [In Concert, Paris Theatre (13.11.82)]
  12. "I Can't Explain" – 4:23 [In Concert, Paris Theatre (13.11.82)]
  13. "Waves" – 4:38 [In Concert, Paris Theatre (13.11.82)]
  14. "Feel Me" – 5:40 [In Concert, Paris Theatre (13.11.82)]

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the Happy Families liner notes.[2]

Blancmange

Additional musicians

Production and artwork

Charts

scope=col Chart (1982–1983)scope=col Peak
position
scope=row Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[3] 17
scope=row Canadian Albums (RPM)[4] 98

Release history

RegionDateLabelFormatCatalog
United Kingdom24 September 1982London RecordsLP/picture disc LPSH 8552/SHPD 8552
cassetteKSAC 8552
1987CD810 123-2
1 September 2008Edsel Recordsremastered and expanded CDEDSS 1026
4 August 2017Edsel RecordsDeluxe 3CD Media Book EditionEDSL0001

Notes and References

  1. Web site: BLANCMANGE Happy Families Too Live in London. 16 November 2013.
  2. Happy Families. Blancmange. 1982. London Records. CD booklet.
  3. Book: Kent, David . Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 . David Kent (historian) . Australian Chart Book . . 37 . 1993 . 0-646-11917-6. Kent Music Report .
  4. Web site: RPM 100 Albums, July 2, 1983 . . 38 . 18 . Library and Archives Canada . 18 September 2012.

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