The Best Of Jona Lewie

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The Best Of Jona Lewie album cover
Album Information
EDITOR'S PICK

Total Tracks: 22   Total Length: 73:53

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Tunes!

McrIsRed

Stop the cavalry is a Christmas classic in the uk and I always loved "in the kitchen at parties" a top find!

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Silence

c_c_parish

If you like downloading nothing then seven minutes of Be Stiff is the one for you!

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Waste of time

JoePublic

Any particular reason why the 9 minute version of Be Stiff has about 7 minutes of silence tacked onto the end. Not great for downloading. Pain in the ass in fact. Along with the fake versions of songs I have found elsewhere this is yet another reason to stop my subscription.

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"Hallelujah Europa . . .

codypomeroy

. . . with Eiffel Towers and Towers of Pisa!" That song and "'You'll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties" were on the playlist of WHFS in DC waaaay back when in the early 80's where I heard them first. Weirdly euro in a goofy fun sorta way. Kinda Monochrome Set-y. Cool!

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eMusic Features

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Stiff Records

By Ira Robbins, eMusic Contributor

Many of the entrepreneurs who founded small record labels in the '70s took it as an article of independent faith that they would — and should — only release music by artists they liked. Expanding on the genre traditions of such great companies as Atlantic (R&B), Motown (soul) and Chess (blues), the best of these d-i-y-ers had such consistent and reliable taste that the labels, as much as their artists, gained loyal adherents. Dave Robinson and… more »

They Say All Music Guide

Irrepressibly quirky or frankly eccentric? Either way, an hour-plus in the company of the best of Jona Lewie is sufficient to induce fits of gleeful air piano playing in the most discriminating listener — an hour-plus, that is, in the thrall of such offbeat pop classics as “Stop the Cavalry” and “Louise,” the demented travelogue of “Hallelujah Europa,” the wallflowering anthem of “You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties,” then on and on for 22 tracks until you reach the closing cover of Devo’s “Be Stiff” — and you thought the Mothersbaugh brothers were weird? Charting Lewie’s entire Stiff label career from the opening single, “The Baby, She’s on the Street” (later covered by Ian Matthews), and democratically dividing the tracks between each of the ensuing albums, The Best of Jona Lewie falters only in that democracy. Arguably, the collection would have been served had it absorbed his On the Other Hand There’s a Fist debut album in its entirety (four tracks are missing), while the period B-side “Police Trap” is also conspicuous by its absence. There is great joy, however, in being reacquainted with later gems “I Think I’ll Get My Hair Cut,” “Rearranging the Deckchairs on the Titanic,” and “The Seed That Always Died,” and the upshot is, if you enjoy the first half of The Best of Jona Lewie, there’s nothing to prevent you enjoying the rest. – Dave Thompson

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