Review: Echo & The Bunnymen - Songs To Learn & Sing

I can't think of a more uninteresting popular and influential new wave band than Echo & The Bunnymen. Often times you don't notice creativity and musical depth in groups you're not big on, and when Crocodiles came out in 1980 I was underwhelmed. I much preferred former pre-Echo associate Julian Cope's The Teardrop Explodes. I also thought visually Ian McCulloch was simply a less extreme Robert Smith. One was enough.

Listening to their 1985 hits collection Songs To Learn & Sing I've concluded there's very little "there" there when it comes to Echo & The Bunnymen. It's lacking in their most popular songs so I doubt it lurks on the b-sides. Sure they had some hits but oh my how shallow they were, repeating themselves and lacking cleverness and surprises. However a song starts is how it pretty much middles and ends. There's also an awkwardness in some of the rhythms.

On the high end you can lump them in with The Simple Minds and The Psychedelic Furs but Echo & The Bunnymen often give just a little more than Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.

Ouch.