Hooking up with regular Madonna collaborator Patrick Leonard as the co-producer of this album proved to be just the trick for Ferry. Bete Noire sparkles as the highlight of Ferry's post-Roxy solo career, adding enough energy to make it more than Boys and Girls part two. Here, his trademark well-polished heartache strikes a fine balance between mysterious moodiness and dancefloor energy, and Leonard adds more than a few tricks that keep the pep up. Five out of the nine songs are Ferry/Leonard collaborations; all succeed, from "Limbo"'s opening punch and flow to the cinematic (and unsurprisingly French-tinged) feeling of the title track. The atmospheric, almost chilling "Zamba"'s minimal, buried drums, soft synths and doomy piano, make it the best of that bunch. Ferry's best moment here is all his own, though – the great single "Kiss and Tell," with a steady, bold bassline leading the way for his slightly dissolute portrayal of mating rituals and all they entail. Like Boys and Girls, the album's supporting cast mixes a lengthy list of session pros with a few guest stars.

Style Council's first proper album Cafe Bleu was one of their better efforts, but it indicated the group's fatal flaw – a tendency to be too eclectic and overambitious. Amidst the lazy jazz instrumentals, many of them courtesy of Mick Talbot, Paul Weller inserted several solid soul-tinged pop songs, including "My Ever Changing Moods," "Headstart for Happiness," "You're the Best Thing," and "Here's One That Got Away." However, that doesn't excuse the rap experiment, "A Gospel." The album was later released with a slightly different running order as My Ever Changing Moods in the U.S.; the American edition included the U.K. hit "A Solid Bond in Your Heart".

With a deeper and broader track listing than most ABC compilations, Look of Love: The Very Best of ABC more or less lives up to its name. Concentrating on the band's glory days, the album covers the highlights of ABC's first five albums, including de rigeur hits like the title track, "Poison Arrow," "When Smokey Sings," "Be Near Me," and "How to Be a Millionaire," as well as album tracks like "S.O.S.," "All of My Heart," and "The Night You Murdered Love." While some of the later inclusions, such as "The Real Thing," don't quite pack the punch of ABC's prime work, the 2001 track "Peace and Tranquility" fits in with the earlier material surprisingly well. Likewise, the somewhat random track listing might be somewhat annoying to anyone trying to track ABC's chronological development, but it does spotlight how consistent their brand of suave synth pop is. With a new song, a more diverse track listing, and no unnecessary remixes, Look of Love has a slight edge over Absolutely ABC: The Best of ABC as the group's definitive retrospective.

This album will raise eyebrows. After all, didn't Johnny Hates Jazz have only one hit song? Forget the band's brief popularity on the American charts. Johnny Hates Jazz was a vastly underrated group, a British pop act whose handsome looks blinded many to the talent bubbling underneath the surface. Most of the record consists of tracks from the band's debut LP, Turn Back the Clock, and their lesser-known follow-up, Tall Stories. Tall Stories was recorded after vocalist Clark Datchler left the group, replaced by Phil Thornalley. Since the long-deleted Tall Stories is hard to find, this might be the only opportunity for fans to hear songs from it. Three of them are collected here: "Let Me Change Your Mind," "Last to Know," and "Fool's Gold." Sounding no different than anything on Turn Back the Clock, these tracks prove that Johnny Hates Jazz didn't lose their knack for soulful, danceable hooks after Datchler's departure. Given that Turn Back the Clock has no filler, the songs taken from that album shouldn't been seen as providing the complete picture.

Backwards and Forwards: The WEA Recordings 1984-1995 is a forthcoming nine-CD box set that collects the music of Aztec Camera via five studio albums, B-sides, live recordings, remixes and rarities.