"Penthouse and Pavement" is the debut album by the English synthpop group "Heaven 17", released in 1981.
"(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" was released as a single, but did not achieve chart success, partly due to a ban by the BBC. The album sold reasonably well, but was not a commercial success on release. It has since been regarded as "an important outing", is included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", and was re-released in 2010 in a 3-disc special edition.
W...
"Penthouse and Pavement" is the debut album by the English synthpop group "Heaven 17", released in 1981.
"(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" was released as a single, but did not achieve chart success, partly due to a ban by the BBC. The album sold reasonably well, but was not a commercial success on release. It has since been regarded as "an important outing", is included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", and was re-released in 2010 in a 3-disc special edition.
Whilst the singles charted poorly, the album charted at No. 14 and remained in the Top 100 for 77 weeks. It was certified gold (100,000 copies sold) by the BPI in October 1982.
Dan LeRoy in a retrospective review for AllMusic felt that the album combined electropop with good melodies, and that Glenn Gregory was able to handle the "overtly left-wing political" lyrics without sounding "pretentious".
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