Cherry Red [Release date : 26.09.25]

The title of this Bangles’ boxset, Watching The Sky, is taken from their third (and at the time, assumed to be their last) album, titled Everything, released in 1988.

CD1 : All Over The Place (1984)
CD2 : A Different Light (1986)
CD3 : Everything (1988)
CD4 : Mixes, Live Recordings and B sides

Celebrating the legacy of The Bangles, the box set contains the studio albums alongside the bands’ earliest recordings and a selection of B-Sides, mixes and live recordings.

As with any collection of ambitious, talented artists, tensions and opposing opinions often became an intractable problem. Members left, new members arrived. Eventually landing on a solid line up, albeit temporary, of Susannah Hoffs, Vicki and Debbi Peterson, and Michael (Mikki) Steele.

All Over The Place gained the band a proliferation of praise in the music media, especially from Udiscovermusic.com :
“They deliver a different voice: an emotional expressiveness, often surprisingly direct, that male acts cannot – and cannot even hope – to deliver.”

Many of the band’s songs were written in the Sixties’ pop slipstream, with ‘Live’, ‘Tell Me’ and a cover of Katrina and The Waves’ ‘Going Down To Liverpool’ coasting serenely through the brightly lit shadows of the Beatles, the Byrds and other “sunshine pop” acts of the era.

Music media liked it, but it didn’t break through commercially.

The slick production and outside input of the multi platinum A Different Light changed everything. It spawned five Billboard charting singles, most notably two top five hits.
The first, ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ was written by Liam Sternberg, who’d written stuff for Ratt, Fuzzbox and Baby Tuckoo. And ‘Manic Monday’ (given to them by Prince as a result of his Suzannah Hoffs infatuation, allegedly).

The media were critical of the band’s all out bid for commercial success, but it’s hard to fault any band who have the good taste to cover “September Gurls” (Big Star) and “If She Knew What She Wants” (Jules Shear). And coming late in the running order, Michael (Mikki) Steele’s haunting acoustic ballad, ‘Following’ is rich in colour and mood. A real surprise bonus.

More FM radio tuned fare on third album, Everything, as the result of producer, David Sigerson’s label loyalty. Two giant tracks escaped that lowest common denominator approach, ‘In Your Room’ and ‘Eternal Flame’, written with guns for hire, Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. In fairness, ‘Complicated Girl’ and ‘Some Dreams Come True’ showed that Debbi Peterson and Mikki Steele had come a long way as songwriters too.

The ‘Eternal Flame’ single’s global success brought it’s own problems of course, and internal tensions resurfaced.

In turn this led to break up of the band, only to reform some 12 years later. But that’s for another day.

CD4, a “bonus disc”, piles up the remixes and edits, including a couple of “singles” released by the pre Bangles’ band, the Bangs.

Key tracks though, just have to be an “extended dance mix” of ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’, a “purple haze mix” of ‘Hazy Shade Of Winter’ and a “12 inch extended version” of ‘In Your Room’.
There are plenty more. 20 tracks in all.

The box includes an illuminating history of the band, written by John Earls from Classic Pop. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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