Search - Phillip Boa & The VoodooClub :: My Private War

An Artist Deserving Greater Attention!

Pinner Blinn | Arlington, MA USA | 12/13/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It is remarkable that Phillip Boa isn't better known in the United States. The German pop-punk maverick has always recorded strictly in English, and the English lyrics are often brilliant: odd, ironic, and funny. Check out either "Aristocracie" or "Hair" for past brilliance. Those are with the original Voodoo Club, which featured Pia Lund on female vocals.My Private War is Boa's revival of the Voodoo spirit, using female vocals to balance Boa's deep singing voice, but without Pia. To those familiar with the band that's a pretty big loss, since her voice was the lead in so many great Voodoo Club songs. The new female singer (Alison Galea) is more of a background singer here, but she is very effective. This CD shows a new maturation of his musical vision. This is a more laid-back Boa but no less intriguing. Songs range from raucous rave-ups to wistful romantic numbers, like "Rome in the Rain" and "Pass Me a Lily", which are the stand-outs for me. Fans of Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, or Sting might find a connection to this CD. Anyone with ears open to the possibility of oddball musical genius should give this a try. One warning: The copy of this CD which I bought from amazon.com has a programming defect. The total time is given as 28 seconds, which caused it to be truncated at that point by all CDROM drives on which I've tried it. It does, however, play perfectly on every audio CD player that I have tried. Disappointing, though, that I can't listen to it through my computer at work. Still a must-have CD!"

Good Music Bad Security

B. Dickerson | Seattle, WA USA | 11/07/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The CD is great but I, like the other reviewer, have a cd with the total playing time listed as ~30 seconds. After looking around the net it appears as though this is a copy protection scheme that the cd is protected with. The only problem is now my computer can't play it and my prtable cd player lmost always has problems seeking to a specific song or randomizing the cd. My home cd player doesn't have any problems at all with it however. Great music though with my personal favorites being "Rome in the Rain," "Walk By" and "Pass Me a Lily." Highly recommended - even more so if it didn't have the copy protection however."