Tuesday, March 3, 2015

(Feels Like) Heaven by Fiction Factory

I first heard of Scottish Fiction Factory and their one hit, "(Feels Like) Heaven" on one of those Rhino Records 80s compilations.  This was a major hit in some markets, but I can't see any evidence that it was actually released in North America at all, meaning that there isn't really any way I could have heard it until it was compiled.

Fiction Factory apparently only ever had two albums period, and broke up later in the mid-80s.  Band leader Kevin Patterson apparently still gets together for revival concerts and whatnot on occasion, but he's left the music industry entirely and works in IT for a university in Scotland.

I wish I'd heard this song earlier, but I suppose by the mid-90s when I got it on the Just Can't Get Enough: New Wave Hits of the 80s compilation series was early enough.  It's a hauntingly beautiful little song.  I also regret that I never finished getting all of the volumes of that compilation, although I have most of them.  The're not easily available anymore.  Apparently Rhino had rights issues with the series and had to discontinue it for that reason, with no plans to re-release.  However, you can get them as used CDs from Amazon at, mostly, relatively decent prices.  Although pricing and availability vary by volume.

Curiously; and I just looked over the tracklists to double check, but none of the volumes have the Depeche Mode song "Just Can't Get Enough" on them.  In fact, there aren't any Depeche Mode songs at all, which seems like a glaring miss, but again--probably due to rights issues.  I can't believe given the choices of songs that they did pick, that they'd have deliberately left off songs like "Just Can't Get Enough," "New Life," "Dreaming of Me," "Leave in Silence" and even "People Are People."  In general, the compilations earliest volumes start at about 1979 or so, and volume 15, the last, had tracks from about 1985.


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