Sophisti-Pop: Coast To Coast

Sophisti-pop is a style of pop that originated in the 1980s and is mainly defined by the influence of soul & jazz and its smooth production.

This mixtape features tracks from ABC, Prefab Sprout, Roxy Music, The Style Council, Rhye and more.

One of the songs I selected is 'When Love Breaks Down' by Prefab Sprout, a UK pop/rock group formed in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1982. In an interview with Mojo magazine (2009), McAloon was critical of one of this song's lines. He said: "I became very conscious of other people making hit records and I wanted to be there with Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Scritti Politti. It would be nice to have a song the milkman could whistle, I like the glory of language, the gag. Some don't work out, like on 'When Love Breaks Down' - which I'd always heard as uptempo - 'absence makes the heart lose weight.' It seems prissy, glib, too thought out."

When love breaks down
The lies we tell,
They only serve to fool ourselves,
When love breaks down
The things you do
To stop the truth from hurting you

Enjoy the big synths, big horns and big blazers.

Tracklist:

The Style Council - My Ever Changing Moods

Curiosity Killed The Cat - Down To Earth

Everything But The Girl - Each & Every One

Kissing The Pink - One Step

ABC - When Smokey Sings

Hipsway - The Honeythief

Roxy Music - Avalon

Scritti Politti - Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin) 

Level 42 - To Be With You Again

Sophie & Peter Johnston - Torn Open

Johnny Hates Jazz - I Don't Want To Be A Hero

The Blue Nile - Tinseltown In The Rain

Howard Jones - Things Can Only Get Better

Fra Lippo Lippi - Shouldn't Have To Be Like That

Sade - Smooth Operator

Destroyer - Chinatown

Prefab Sprout - When Love Breaks Down

Rhye - The Fall

Black - Wonderful Life
Danny Wilson - Mary's Prayer

Sophisti-Pop vol. 1 by Martijn Soetens on Mixcloud