Can You Tell Me What a Wang Chung Is? In their evolution from arty new-romantic band to pop-song duo, Wang Chung recorded a string of cool singles and some memorable MTV videos. While starting life as a four-piece and the name Huang Chung, the core pair of vocalist/guitarist Jack Hues and bassist Nick Feldman remained intact through five albums. The first album is left off this set (likely because of being on Arista records in the USA as opposed to Geffen, and either "Ti Na Na" or "Rising in The East" would have been nice to have), but when the band name took on a W and they released "Points of a Curve" in 1984, the hits began coming.
The breakout was "Dance Hall Days," whose video featured the walking suitcase that hatched from a mirror ball. "Don't Be My Enemy" and the other charting single, "Don't Let Go," make their appearance on this collection. The song "Wait" caught the attention of William Freidken, who used it for his thriller, "To Live and Die In LA." He also approached the band for more music and the band returned with the full movie soundtrack. The title song barely missed the top 40 and began to show the band moving towards more conventional (even if atmospheric) pop.
"Mosaic" jumped on board the pop train completely after "To Live And Die In LA." Now down to a duo of Hughes and Feldmen, "Mosaic" ditched new wave synths for dance-pop and scored the band's biggest hit with "Everybody Have Fun Tonight." Quite possibly one of the only times a band has reinvented their name as a verb, the insanely catchy song and its spazzy, stop motion video catapulted to number two and remains an unforgivable earworm. "Let's Go" also hit the Top 10 and "Hypnotize Me" made it as the theme to the Dennis Quaid/Martin Short comedy "Innerspace."
However, "The Warmer Side of Cool" was so homogenized that it pretty much vanished on release. The punchy "Praying to a New God" and the OK "What's So Bad About Feeling Good" made it to this set, and the ballad "Big World" should have. There's one more track from the Wang Chung's one off session in '97, "Space Junk." That fills up this set, which is pretty much as much Wang Chunging as you probably need to have on a casual basis.
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