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Rebirth of the Century
La Vogue is very typical of the Synthphony Records label: very retro in sound, cheerful, Swedish (except that the singer is actually Finnish -- he just lives in Sweden.) Like many Synthphony releases, it also features some good songs, and an overall "better than mediocre" tone, but not uniformly excellent. That an probably be expected since the date on the songs ranges from 1984 to 1997, so such a mixed bag of songs that have obviously been put together without a thought of thematic conformity shouldn't be expected to be that great (although they were all recorded at the same time, at least.) However, despite the different ages of the songs, there's relatively little that can be used to distinguish older songs from newer ones. Rather, the occasionally cheesiness of the songs works against them at times.

"Somebody New" is a typical cheerful dance song. Although it doesn't sound exactly like Wonderland-era Erasure, it was obviously heavily influenced by early Vince Clark, as was most of the album, for that matter. It gives a good idea of what the rest of the CD is going to sound like. The slightly darker "Visions of Night" is one I prefer a little more; in fact it's a contender for the best song here. I also think the melody is a bit catchier, and the even faster tempo makes it extremely danceable. Interestingly enough, it's one of the oldest songs on the album, along with the next song, "Criminal Dance" and "New Revolution." "Criminal Dance" is a bit more mellow, although still danceable. I don't like it as much, but it's not a bad song; about comparable with "Somebody New" in style and quality, although it does have the chorus in a minor key. "Wounds are Healing" is one of the slower songs, also written quite a while ago. It's not bad, but like many slow songs that aren't excellent, it's also fairly boring. Probably the most exciting songs, albeit one with exceptionally cheesy and silly lyrics is "Sex Robot." Despite its weaknesses, I think it's one of the best songs on the album, in part due to the excellent synthwork overall.

"New Revolution" features a long run time, slightly darker sound, and a more serious tone, which makes it a highlight. The instrumental "Interstellar" has some very obvious early Vince Clark-esque sounds to it; it almost sounds like it could come from Speak and Spell. "Today" is another good dance song, sounding quite a bit like "Visions of Night" in many ways, with nice programming and very good vocal delivery; slightly distorted at times for a slightly different sound. "Heaven is Waiting" features a guest vocalist for back-up and a slightly "broken" rhythm. Overall, it reminds me a lot of the song on Wonderland with a similar title. Finally, the longish and slower song "A World Outside Your Door" is a much better slow song than "Wounds are Healing" and sounds quite a bit like a Daily Planet song, actually. I'm still not convinced that it's a great song, but that may have more to do with my generally jaded attitude about slow songs in general since it's not a bad song.

Overall, it sounds like a dancey version of Daily Planet -- songs like "Superman," "Milky Way" or "Radioactive Love" would have fit perfectly on this CD as well. Ollila's vocals, as always, are delivered perfectly, without an accent, and full of emotion and expressiveness. However, the occasional silliness of the album serves to make it difficult to take seriously all the time.