You were waiting there swimming through apologies...

When Berlin were in their heyday, basically the most common thing said about them is "oh, that's the band with the chick with the bad dye job". I mean come on, what was with that half and half thing she wore? Who told her that looked good? Well at least it made it easier to tell them apart from Missing Persons.

The band's career really arced with three albums, Pleasure Victim, Love Life, and Count Three And Pray. The Best Of Berlin 1979-1988 picks out 12 songs from these 3 albums to provide a surprisingly consistent good listen from the band. Considering how much of a different tack each album had (which is expected since different band lineups contributed), the music meshes pretty well. Pleasure Victim was a classic primitive new wave album, with eerie mood pieces like the best song on here, "The Metro", "Sex (I'm A)", and "Masquerade", all very German-sounding and synthesizer-driven. Love Life was more neo-romantic, appropriate after the phenomenon that was Duran Duran, with more pop-sounding and emotional songs like "No More Words", "Now It's My Turn", and "For All Tomorrow's Lies" (this song being the weakest link here). Lead Singer Terri Nunn's voice is put more as a belter than a siren. Count Three And Pray basically was a disjointed pop-rock cash-in on the smash song "Take My Breath Away", which sounds much better in retrospect without hearing it 20 times a day, with competent but non-exceptional songs such as "Like Flames", "You Don't Know" (a top 40 song in England) and "Will I Ever Understand You". Also included are two new songs, "Blowin' Sky High" and "Matter Of Time", which are OK even though they don't outshine the older material here.

All and All The Best Of Berlin 1979-1988 is a good listen considering the hit-or-miss nature of many of the new-wave bands of that time. The CD gives you almost everything a casual fan could really want from them (though unfortunately missing the ubiquitous "Dancing In Berlin", why would they miss that of all things) and by mixing the chronology up, don't lag until the very last song.

Berlin showed up in the VH1 car-accident-like show Bands Reunited to reunite for one concert. I was intrigued to dig up that guitarist Dave Diamond, who now works at an aviation school in California, put out a gay-country album, Qowboy, that I would love to hear. And Dave is quite the hunky bear as well...

Grade: B
Best Cuts: "The Metro", "No More Words", "Sex (I'm A)"
Weakest Link: "For All Tomorrow's Lies"