I love the art of the remix. It can bring new life to a track (Cornershop's Brimful Of Asha) or turn it into a thing of beauty as mixes by Andrew Weatherall, Global Communications or Phone can testify. So on paper the thinking behind Future Retro is a good idea. Take a bunch of 1980's classic synthpop orientated singles and bring them up to date with the cream of the crop of 21st century remixers. Sadly the term "classic" is the compilation's downfall. Some of the tracks were bad enough first time around and do not really need re-evaluating after all this time. They should be confined to the musical grave without the remixer equivalents of Burke and Hare digging them up.
There are two examples of a good remix on this album. One is where a beat has been added but not much more has been interfered with. The Infusion remix of the Cure's The Walk and Echo and the Bunnymen's Lips Like Sugar Way Out West remix are prime examples of this with pretty effective results. The other example is where the original is stripped away and rebuilt or restructured from scratch. Such is the case with the Elite Force remix of White Lines and the Sparks remix of Morrissey's Suedehead which are far and away the best tracks on the album.
The trouble is there are too many mediocre tracks given the remix treatment and staleness of the originals means that there is not too much to work on. INXS Need You Tonight and Depeche Mode's Shake The Disease remain lifeless after the plodding beats of the remix treatment. Howard Jones (I mean Howard Jones! - I blame reality TV!) and the likes of B-Movie and Book Of Love fare no better.
Of the remaining tracks there are some pretty decent mixes scattered about. The Crystal Method remix of New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle is a good effort but the fragileness of the original, especially Barney's vocals, is lost. Yaz's (what happened to the "oo"?) Situation (Richard X mix) is given yet another remix after the mauling it received on Mute at the end of the 20th century and comes out the better for it and Devo's Girl You Want is given a fresh lick of paint by Black Light Odyssey.
Sadly such a glorious opportunity to give today's audience an insight of the vibrancy of 1980's club culture is wasted with this release but I think that is down to the music taste and final choices of the compiler (producer Craig Degraff) rather than the material available from this period. It is not a question of whether you liked the originals as a remix could have changed the track (and your view) completely but in the end this is an album that will appeal to US new waver types but sadly to no-one else. 7/10 for Grandmaster & Melle Mel, Morrissey, New Order, Yazoo, Echo & the Bunnymen, Devo, New Order & the Cure. 0/10 for the rest.
You can stream tracks from the album here (Real Player) or here (Windows Media Player).
Yazoo are known as Yaz in the US due to a legal issue with the label they named themselves after.