1982's
Music for a New Society
marked a change of direction for
John Cale
; most of his work of the '70s and early '80s had been increasingly eccentric, aggressive, and hard-edged, but
was quiet and spare on the surface, only occasionally interrupted by bursts of discord. The lyrics, on the other hand, were full of stories of damaged lives and dashed hopes, and the album was an overlooked masterpiece in his catalog. In 2016,
Cale
revisited most of the songs from
on
M:FANS
, where he reshaped them with an eye toward contemporary electronic music and the anxieties of the 21st century.
Music for a New Society/M:FANS
is a special two-fer collection that includes the original 1982 album as well as the 2016 variant. The package also features a bonus track from the 1982 sessions, "Library of Force," as well as alternate takes of "Chinese Envoy" and "Thoughtless Kind." ~ Mark Deming