The Age of Consent (1984)

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Apr 14, 2025

Title: The Age of Consent
Artist: Bronski Beat
Genre: Synthpop
Released: 1984

Tracks:
1 - Why? - 4:03
2 - Ain't Necessarily So - 4:43
3 - Screaming - 4:16
4 - No More War - 4:00
5 - Love and Money - 5:11
6 - Smalltown Boy - 5:03 -

7 - Heatwave - 2:40
8 - Junk - 4:19
9 - Need a Man Blues - 4:19
10 - I Feel Love - 6:01
11 - I Feel Love (Medley with Marc Almond) - 8:20
12 - Run From Love (Re-mix from 'Hundreds and Thousands') - 8:16
13 - Hard rain (Re-mix from 'Hundreds and Thousands') - 7:56
14 - Memories - 2:57
15 - Puit D'Amour - 1:42
16 - Heatwave (Re-mix from 'Hundreds and Thousands') - 5:41

Overview:

To say The Age of Consent is a great album of dance-oriented synth-pop music is to sell it extremely short; this is simply a great album, period. Jimmy Somerville's soaring tenor may take some getting used to, but the songs, many of them dealing with homophobia and alienation (none more eloquently than "Smalltown Boy"), are compelling vignettes about the vagaries of life as a gay man. Cynics predisposed to dismissing entire genres of music based on trendiness or a limited appeal ("dance music is for dancing, not listening") miss the point in lumping this in with more mindless forays into techno or neo-disco. As the Pet Shop Boys (the world's greatest disco band) proved a few years later, you can have substantive content and wrap it up in a compelling, visceral, dance-oriented package. Few bands understood this better, or earlier, than Bronski Beat.

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