A Wonderful Sample Of Icehouse

May I just begin by saying the man's name is IVA- who is this Ira guy? This is a good introduction to Icehouse. If you enjoy this c.d., I recommend purchasing all the individual albums. They are all brilliant (okay, 'Sidewalk' is a bit cheezy but the rest are worth it). I must disagree that there is not enough from "Man of Colours". While that album offers some decent songs, the earlier albums are much better in my humble opinion. We have all heard "Electric Blue" and "Crazy" quite enough. I believe this album offers insight into the slightly more obscure but always intriguing world of Icehouse.

Down Underated

When Icehouse began showing signs of American commercial breakout, "Great Southern Land" appeared. Originally released in 1989, it collected 10 songs from Icehouse's hefty catalog and added one new cut ("Touch The Fire"). It's interesting to hear how the band went from being a rather basic 80's synthpop band ("We Can Get Together") to Iva Davies' solo collective ala Roxy Music or Steely Dan ("Hey Little Girl"). Davies' greeting card to his home continent, "Great Southern Land," is also much more interesting than the corny "Down Under."



The import version of "Great Southern Land" sports more cuts than the out of print US CD, and also replaces the overdrawn remix of "No Promises" with the album version, to the song's benefit. Fans of 80's music like Roxy, Fixx and Ultravoxx would do well to seek this CD out.

Original recordings

A wonderful introduction to Iva's world. Each song is wonderfully written and recordrd and, unlike another review points out...these are the original versions and NOT re-recorded.
There are NO Man Of Colours tracks as Iva felt they were too new at the time and deserved to be heard as a set and not broken up for inclusion on a greatest hits package.

Any Icehouse purchase is worth it.