Four Seasons: Streetfighter & Hope & Glory

[johnriley1uk]

A 2 CD set from Collector's Choice, a division of Rhino, available from Amazon at £11.99

Streetfighter (1985) and Hope & Glory (1992) are the two most recent Four Seasons albums, featuring the inimitable Frankie Valli of course. This is electronic age, modern music with the Four Seasons harmony "sound" added and integrated, bringing a fresh new feel to the music.

The musicians are mostly the same as perform on stage and the songwriters the same ones who wrote the great hits of the 1960s and 1970s. Bob Gaudio, Sandy Linzer, Nathalie Archangel, Bob Crewe, Jerry Corbetta and others are all in the mix.

It's a difficult thing for a group to progress and both take the old audience with them and gain a new audience as well. The danger is that the old fans won't like the new stuff and the potential new fans won't have any particular incentive to listen to it anyway. Also, as the music becomes more sophisticated then also it becomes potentially less instantly commercial.

But whichever camp you might fall into, these are two superb albums, very powerful and very coherent. Take them on board without prejudicies and there's a very good chance that you might like them.