had reached the top of the charts before, but that didn't make their sudden popularity in 1983 any more predictable. It wasn't that they were just popular -- they were hip, for God's sake, since they were one of the only favorites to figure out to harness the stylish, synthesized grooves of , and then figure out how to sell it on . Of course, it helped that they had songs that deserved to be hits. With and they had their greatest set of singles since the heady days of , and the songs that surrounded them weren't bad either -- they would have been singles on , as a matter of fact. The songs alone would have made one of 's three greatest albums, but their embrace of synths and sequencers made it a blockbuster hit, since it was the sound of the times. Years later, the sound of the times winds up sounding a bit stiff. It's still an excellent album, one of their best, yet it sounds like a mechanized thanks to the unflaggingly accurate grooves. Then again, that's part of the album's charm -- this is , glossed up for the video, looking as good as the omnipresent convertible on the cover and sounding as irresistible as Reaganomics. Not the sort the old-school fans or purists will love, but never sounded as much like a band of its time as they did here. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine