Modern techniques of liquid state physics have been successfully used over the last decade to probe the microscopic structure and dynamics of a variety of multicomponent liquids in which relative ordering of the species is present near freezing. The alkali halides are prototypes for this specific type of short-range order in relation to the nature of bonding, but the systems in question also include other monovalent and polyvalent metal-ion halides, alkali-based intermetallic compounds and chalcogenbased alloys. A viewpoint is taken in this review which gives attention to the relations between liquid and solid phase properties across melting for compound systems at stoichiometric composition. In addition, large deviations from stoichiometry can be realised in the liquid phase, to display trends of evolution of structure, bonding and electronic states with composition.