Tracklist
The GroovesLiner Notes
Roger Chapman released Mango Crazy in March 1983. His fourth solo studio album, recorded with the Shortlist and distributed in Germany by RCA, included the concert favourite title track and “Toys: Do You?”, on which former Family member Poli Palmer contributed Fairlight CMI programming.
Album Reviews2
Reviews gathered with this release and kept on the album page rather than in the general Press Archive.
Mail Order Magic and Mango Crazy — 2004 reissue reviews
Reissue review. Reviewing the 2004 Mystic CDs together, Joe Geesin gives Mail Order Magic three stars and Mango Crazy four.
Mail Order Magic
Geesin hears strong writing, dark and moody passages and an early-1980s new-wave edge around Chapman and Geoff Whitehorn. The changing tempos give the record variety, with echoes of Alex Harvey and the gentler end of Dire Straits. His verdict is positive but qualified: enjoyable and often absorbing, though not consistently gripping.
Mango Crazy
The new-wave influence is stronger, but Chapman’s voice is particularly well suited to it. Geesin finds the songs more purposeful than those on the earlier album and praises the wider band around Whitehorn, Steve Simpson, Boz Burrell and the keyboard players.
Turn It Up Loud — box-set review
Box-set review. This assessment follows the second major phase of Chapman’s solo career across Hyenas Only Laugh for Fun, the double live He Was… She Was… You Was… We Was…, Mango Crazy and The Shadow Knows. The review treats the set as a coherent story: the Shortlist becoming an increasingly assured vehicle for Chapman, then adapting its muscular rock foundation to the sharper production and changing textures of the mid-1980s.
The expanded live and bonus material is valued for showing how differently the songs could work onstage, while the studio sequence traces Chapman’s move from the concentrated, band-centred sound of Hyenas toward the more streamlined attack of Mango Crazy and The Shadow Knows.
All Pressings6
Every known issue, variant, reissue, and repress across all countries and formats. Identical catalogue entries with multiple Discogs listings are grouped into a single row.
Gallery6 images
Covers, labels, inserts, and press material across all pressings. Click any image to view full-size.
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