Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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Wax UK was the union of veteran musicians Andrew Gold and Graham Gouldman, which produced several albums in the 1980s. Gold, the son of Academy Award-winning composer Ernest Gold and Marni Nixon (who had handled the singing for, among others, Natalie Wood in West Side Story), had been a member of Linda Ronstadt's band and found success as a solo artist and songwriter in the '70s. Gouldman had been a solo artist as well as a member of Hotlegs and 10CC.

In 1986, Wax UK released their debut, Magnetic Heaven, which spent nearly three months on the U.S. album charts, spawning the hit "Right Between the Eyes," which just failed to reach the Top 40, peaking at number 43. Two more albums by the duo followed, 1987's American English, which contained the successful European single "Bridge to Your Heart," and 1989's A Hundred Thousand in Fresh Notes. The latter two records failed to achieve sales of the debut and, by the beginning of the '90s, both Gold and Gouldman had moved on to other efforts; the former, in the singer/songwriter collaboration Bryndle; the latter, participating in a reunion with his 10CC mates.

Biography by Tom Demalon, Allmusic.com

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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The debut album by one of the most promising double acts of the mid-'80s, complicated somewhat by an overwhelming need to sound like contemporary artists. Neither Graham Gouldman nor Andrew Gold could be said to have built their careers on danceable pop music; nor could their respective audiences have really been dying to hear them try. But they went for it anyway and, aided by a studio stuffed with the latest in techno gadgetry, turned in an album that could certainly hold its own against the majority of what was on the streets at that time. Indeed, "Right Between the Eyes" deserved to be as big a hit as any contemporary smash you can name, and digging deeper into the album, it was clear that even if the duo weren't exactly busting a gut in the songwriting stakes, they did have their finger on the modern pulse.

Review by Dave Thompson, Allmusic.com

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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The partnership of songwriters Graham Gouldman and Andrew Gold, stepping out of the wreckage of the recently deceased 10cc, always promised a lot more than it actually delivered. While there was no denying either the talents or the heritage of either player, Wax was doomed to remain a child of its time – that awful, awkward second half of the '80s during which production and arrangements took over from the actual songwriting, and swamped even the sweetest tune in bombast and swill. And so American English disguises 11 songs beneath echoing drums, bellowing keyboards and "look at me, I'm wonderful" vocals, until even the tracks that you know should be good, like the title track, the single "Bridge to Your Heart," and "Right Between the Eyes," are reduced to little more than background noises in a particularly annoying version of Miami Vice, and what should have been an object lesson in musical brilliance becomes a master class in the worst of '80s excess. Unless, of course, you like records that sound like a lot of doors being slammed.

Review by Dave Thompson, Allmusic.com

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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It feels great to be back in the saddle again as Wax. This album brings together six new songs we recorded in California over the past couple of years, two previously unreleased tracks from the Eighties albums. Hope you like it.

Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman, January 1997

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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10cc might well have been the most brilliantly inventive British band of the '70s but, by the '80s, few people cared about that; neither did they raise an eyebrow when Graham Gouldman, fresh from the group's 1983 split, teamed with L.A. singer/songwriter Andrew Gold in a new band, World in Action. An album was written and recorded, but when their first single, "Don't Break My Heart," slipped straight into the dumper, they changed the name to Common Knowledge and tried again. "Victoria" was no more fortunate than its predecessor and, while the duo would remain together and (third time's a charm) finally enjoy some success as Wax, the original album was shelved. It would be 15 years before it finally surfaced, padded out with two further songs from the same sessions ("Big Fat Baby" and "Heartbeat to Heartbeat") and three new songs ("Sometimes," the Stephen Bishop co-write "Shanghai Moon," and "First Time in Love"), recorded at Gold's home studio in 1997-1998. The result is a fascinating, if not necessarily brilliant,collection. It is certainly scarred by many of the difficulties that haunted the latter-day 10cc, with both players keeping a far closer eye on what they thought their audience might demand, as opposed to what they themselves were interested in; at the same time, however, it is definitely an improvement on the studio overkill that scarred their subsequent Wax albums, and so Common Knowledge takes its place in the discography as a prototype that actually wipes the floor with the finished thing.

Review by Dave Thompson, Allmusic.com

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Wax UK (Andrew Gold & Graham Gouldman) - Albums Collection 1986-2000 (6CD) [Re-Up]

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