Ultimate New Wave Experience vol. 7: Solo Works

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Here's volume 7 of the compilation series Ultimate New Wave Experience. For this set, I chose songs released as solo efforts by members of relatively popular bands. Many of these artists have long gone solo, but some are still members of their respective bands but who have simply released albums under their own solo names.

I'm sure that many of the albums where such songs came from have gone by unnoticed by many people, even by some fans themselves. After all, most of these songs and the albums themselves never really received radio airplay or much buzz in the media arena.

If one is truly in search of new music to discover, one has to look for them himself and not rely on the radio.

I chose the songs meticulously after listening to the whole albums repeatedly. I choose what I find the catchiest and most memorable songs in the albums, based on my personal taste.

I just want to share them with fellow music enthusiasts, in the hopes of inspiring and encouraging them to appreciate music beyond what is commercial and mainstream.

Dig.

A few notes:

* Richard Butler's "Broken Aeroplanes" has a vibe reminiscent of The Wild Swans' "Sea of Tranquility," from this band's second album, Spaceflower (1990).

* Gary Kemp's "Standing in Love" will be great to play before or after "Life in a Northern Town" by The Dream Academy.

* Magne Furuholmen's "The Longest Night" has been reworked by his band a-ha and included the result as the title track of their last album, 2009's Foot of the Mountain.