I remember borrowing this band's début album from my local record library when I was 14 or so. I taped the vinyl album. Where is that tape now ? It doesn't pay to be careless with belongings of that sort, things you might just want to review on your web-site nearly twenty years later.
The début album ("Happy Birthday") is one of the many albums regretfully out of print today, along with that "Dalek I love you" album I used to own and Tim Buckley's "Starsailor" (never thought I'd ever mention those three albums in the same sentence).
So I had a look at the albums that were in print and found two compilation albums, of which I bought the cheapest (which incidentally seems to be the one with the most tracks on). Good value for money, too, since the cd runs for longer than I thought it was possible for a cd to run (ok, there's lots of remixes and the song "Happy Birthday", in various forms, seems to be repeated umpteen times throughout the record).
I didn't like the cover much: a violet-tinted photo of singer Clare Grogan made up and in posh evening dress. A kind of an eighties design. That side of the eighties we choose to leave aside when going back down "memory lane". It reminds me a bit of a "Sade" (British 80s pop star, not 18th century French libertarian novelist) cover, something in the same vein. Like when David Bowie dressed up in a suit during the "Let's Dance" period. I'm talking about that kind of aesthetics: when everyone wanted to look classy and serious, in sync with the burgeoning "business" ethos of the day.
                                                                                                                       photo from the band's farewell gig at the Penthouse, Glasgow, 1984
                                                                                                                                                                by Les Johnstone
But I digress, I digress…

Still, this cover is a bit of a problem, cos if you're expecting what the cover suggests: chic, easy-listening, background music, then you're in for a surprise.
Altered Images is, of course, much more than that.
I, of course, was expecting the poppy, punky strains of the début album throughout the cd, so I was in for a bit of a surprise too.

This is not a "two albums on one cd". More like a "two bands on one cd" !

It starts off with the poppy/punky material of "Happy Birthday" then moves, to quote the Pythons "to something completely different" !

Apparently, the band made three albums before calling it a day. I'm not familiar with the track listings on each one, so I'm talking out of the top of my head at this point, but apart from the recurring "Happy Birthday" theme, it looks like the progression on this compilation is roughly chronological. The record gets gradually funkier and more produced as it progresses, moving, from the open rebelliousness of the earlier tracts to smoother, soul-inspired, orchestrated numbers.
Sometimes the "newer" stuff works, usually when the band manage to preserve the mad spontaneity of Grogan's vocal style as well as the band's bouncy, jumpy, poppy quality while moving into more "elaborately" orchestrated numbers.
The band carried off some of these numbers well, those (maybe) situated around the second album, when they carried the punk spontaneity and quirkiness into poppier territories. Songs like "I Could be Happy", "Pinky Blue" or "Don't talk to me about love" with its winning mixture of funky chords and jumpy pop.
Still, it's the "older" tracks I like the best. The ones, curiously enough, that are considered by some critics as the weakest of the band's repertoire. Apparently, the first album was produced by one Steve Severin, of legendary "Siouxsie and the Banshees" fame. All except the title track, "Happy Birthday", that was produced by someone else (name eludes me). For the aforementioned critics, "Happy Birthday" is the redeemable track and the rest of the first album is basically filler !

I couldn't disagree more strongly ! Ok, so I'm reviewing an absentee album here, relying heavily on the embellished nostalgia of my adolescence (save the few tracks on the compilation album) but I'd still go for the early stuff.
The Siouxsie link is an interesting one, as Altered Images' enduring charm is closely linked to Clare Grogan's vocal style. You either love it or hate it. The style has something of punk priestesses Siouxsie Sioux and Nina Hagen's shouting, aggressive qualities, but it's as if a little girl was trying to sing like a "bad-assed" punk. The end result is something that has equal measures of loopiness, unpredictable spontaneity and charm.
As for the music, it's classic "New Wave" stuff. By that I mean the particular moment in musical history (turn of the 80s) when the punk aesthetic was carried into pop. When the minimalist aesthetics and dark tonal progressions of punk were brought into the mainstream and blended with more melodic pop.

"Happy Birthday" (the album) is definitely a personal favourite. I wish I had it ! Failing that, this collection is well worth it's money.

(well, at least I found the "Happy Birthday" cover)

As for Grogan, I last saw her hosting a music show on music-video satellite channel "VH-1". On the show I watched she managed to slip in an "Altered Images" live number which made me sure it was really her. Bit of a pity that VH-1 is such an "old-fart" channel (at least what I've watched of it has been). There are so many crap 80s songs on the channel whereas Altered Images was an innovative and spontaneous band. Still, for Clare Grogan, I suppose v-jaying on VH-1 beats working…
 

Vis-à-vis Altered Images, this guy knows what he's talking about (and he seems to like "Happy Birthday" almost as much as me and he has sound )
 

No, I don't wanna leave the klick'o'rama, take me back to the main page