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82 Articles

So, Classic Pop is 10. We can scarcely believe it ourselves but it’s been a full decade since we launched this magazine onto an unsuspecting public back in October 2012. Now it’s traditional at this juncture for those in a similar position to devote a hefty portion of an anniversary issue to looking back on their own personal highlights, but who really needs such self-referential navel-gazing when we have a whole host of brand new delights to feast upon? Instead, we’re putting the party hats and streamers to one side and rattling on with a galaxy of A-list stars. Anyone who caught last year’s revelatory aha: The Movie, will no doubt be delighted – and more than a little surprised – to learn that Norway’s iconic pop trio have put…

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

The winner of the Best Writer – Specialist category in this year’s British Society of Magazine Editors Awards, for our latest issue John Earls catches up with a-ha for our in-depth cover feature, speaks all things Medazzaland with Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes and oversees our new albums and reissues reviews sections. Paul Kirkley makes his living from interviewing famous people with much more interesting and glamorous lives than his own. He is also, to the best of his knowledge, the only paid TV critic for a national supermarket chain. This issue, the lifelong Simple Minds fan meets Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill to get the lowdown on their new studio album, Direction Of The Heart. Wyndham Wallace is formerly a publicist, label representative and artist manager who has written for…

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Jamiroquai announce vinyl reissue series

Jamiroquai’s vinyl reissue series continues apace with four new releases including a debut appearance on the format for their career-spanning singles collection. The greatest hits retrospective High Times: Singles 1992-2006, previously only out on CD, will now emerge on 2 December in three vinyl formats – a180g black 2LP set, a numbered, limited edition double LP on 180g green marbled vinyl and a signed edition limited to just 1,000 copies. The signed version will be available exclusively through UK indie record stores. Already available is a reissue of their debut album, Emergency On Planet Earth, pressed on transparent vinyl for National Album Day on 14 October, with a double-LP black vinyl of fifth album, A Funk Odyssey, following on 4 November, before a foiled, gatefold version of 2005’s Dynamite arrives…

Jamiroquai announce vinyl reissue series

Brad Pitt’s studio hosts Sade for new recording sessions

Could a new Sade studio album – their first since 2010’s Soldier of Love – be taking shape in France? The band have been working at Provence’s newly-renovated Miraval Studios, which is owned by Brad Pitt and producer Damien Quintard. Sade’s last release of any kind was 2018 single Flower Of The Universe, which appeared on the soundtrack to Ava DuVernay’s film A Wrinkle In Time. Speaking to Billboard magazine, Quintard confirmed that Sade Adu and her band had been at the studios recording new material: “We were ecstatic when she arrived, and for her to be the first artist to record again here,” he said. “Some of the great moments of the studio are when you combine the past with the future.” Co-owner Pitt bought the studio in 2011…

Brad Pitt’s studio hosts Sade for new recording sessions

DEPECHE MODE REVEAL BRAND NEW ALBUM AND TOUR

Depeche Mode have announced details of their 15th studio album, Memento Mori, set to be released next spring in advance of a major world tour. In a break from tradition, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore revealed at a press event in Berlin on 4 October that the Live Nation-presented tour will begin with a special, limited series of North American arena dates on 23 March 2023, before the band heads to Europe for their summer stadium jaunt. The album and shows will be the first re-emergence of Depeche Mode since the death of Andy Fletcher in May. The North American shows feature dates at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Chicago’s United Center, Los Angeles’ Kia Forum and Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, among others. The band will then begin their European stadium…

OMD AND SOFT CELL ARE AMONG LET’S ROCK HEADLINERS FOR 2023

Let’s Rock has unveiled details of seven of its upcoming festivals for 2023 with Soft Cell making their debut appearances. Fresh from the success of comeback album *Batteries Not Included, released earlier this year, Marc Almond and Dave Ball have signed up for their first shows at the retro festival and explained: “We are delighted to be headlining so many Let’s Rock festivals in 2023. We’re playing Northern Ireland, Shrewsbury, Exeter and Southampton for the first time ever as Soft Cell – as well as in our spiritual home of Leeds.” Among the other headliners announced for 2023’s festivals are OMD, The Human League, Bananarama and Wet Wet Wet plus very special guests The Boomtown Rats. Further acts include Tony Hadley, Kim Wilde, Heaven 17, Midge Ure and Nik Kershaw…

OMD AND SOFT CELL ARE AMONG LET’S ROCK HEADLINERS FOR 2023

“I DON’T ACTUALLY WANT TO CRITICISE ANYONE WHO WANTS TO LOOK LIKE A DOLL. I’M LITERALLY ASKING THE QUESTION: ‘WHY DO PEOPLE FEEL THEY HAVE TO LOOK A CERTAIN WAY?” I AN WADE Back in 1989, Sam Brown whisked her way to the top with the anthemic single Stop! and a handful of chart hits, transforming the life of a session singer who’d worked with the stellar likes of Small Faces, Pink Floyd and Spandau Ballet. In 2007, she lost her voice and could no longer sing or hit the notes she used to. Undeterred, Brown adapted to her new predicament and has since been running ukulele clubs across the world. Her new studio album, Number 8, is released next January. Tell us about the new album, Number 8… I’ve…

DROWNING IN BERLIN

MOBILES Eastbourne-based synth-pop band Mobiles became one of the more eccentric one-hit wonders when the minimalist Drowning In Berlin clambered into the UK Top 10 in 1982. The track is melancholic and dark, with the Cold War at the forefront of an otherwise half-written lyric and added taken-aback factor provided by a merry-go-round style middle eight of conjurer’s theme The Loveliest Night Of The Year. Singer Anna Maria delivers a fervent, unnerving vocal and there is, almost inevitably, some icy chanting in German. Issued at the end of 1981, the song received strong support from radio and entered the chart in January 1982. It eventually reached No.9 after five weeks, joining electronic luminaries Kraftwerk, OMD and The Human League in the Top 10. While revered by synth-pop devotees at the…

DROWNING IN BERLIN

GARBAGE DIG OUT HITS AND DEEP CUTS FOR DOUBLE ALBUM RETROSPECTIVE

Garbage have announced the release of Anthology, their first career-spanning compilation in 15 years. Out on 28 October via BMG/ Stunvolume, the collection spans their debut eponymous album up to 2021’s critically-acclaimed No Gods No Masters LP. Anthology also includes rare track Witness To Your Love and boasts original artwork from Chilean artist Javi Mi Amor who collaborated with the band on No Gods No Masters. Speaking about Anthology, Shirley Manson says: “This is testimony to almost three decades of creative work together, our collective tenacity and our terrifying ability as a group to withstand ritual humiliation on a regular basis. Regardless of the inevitable shifts and tides within the music industry, we are surprised to find ourselves still here, making records and touring the globe. It is in no…

GARBAGE DIG OUT HITS AND DEEP CUTS FOR DOUBLE ALBUM RETROSPECTIVE

PEOPLE POWER PROMPTS WELLER RARITIES COMP

Hand-picked by the Modfather himself, new compilation Will Of The People collects together 31 B-sides, rarities and remixes from Paul Weller’s solo career over the last 20 years. Spanning nine studio albums, the release takes a similar approach to 2003’s Fly On The Wall collection that brought together a wealth of Weller recordings stretching back to 1991 – the B-sides, 12” EP tracks, single remixes and ‘live’ recordings featured all had one thing in common, none of them had been included on any of his hugely successful solo albums. Among the highlights on Will Of The People is a cover of The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ rocker, Birthday, recorded to celebrate Paul McCartney’s 70th and a Pet Shop Boys remix of Cosmic Fringes. Members of Primal Scream as well as Graham…

PEOPLE POWER PROMPTS WELLER RARITIES COMP

Tell us how you first got into music... I was steeped in Elvis and The Beatles from as early an age as I can remember. There’s a photograph of me that my mum has, and I’m maybe two-and-ahalf, three years old and someone obviously had a guitar but it was too big for me, so I’m holding it like a double bass. She said I was singing She Loves You by that point. What’s your all-time favourite album? Well, I once got the opportunity to listen to Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road in Dolby Atmos at a playback, and that was a religious experience – I’ve been a Beatles fan for as long as I can remember. With Abbey Road, it was only a few of us – myself, Richard…

Marc Cerrone has always been a man ahead of the game. France’s foremost disco auteur at the time when Daft Punk, Air and their contemporaries were still in short trousers, his biggest UK hit, 1978’s Supernature, was a warning from the future about climate change. Now aged 70 and still DJing, he tells us why he’s releasing a greatest hits with a difference, a continuous mix that takes in his career highlights as well as new reboots by the likes of Purple Disco Machine, Joey Negro and Dimitri From Paris. Why have you chosen to do a greatest hits album in remix form rather than releasing existing tracks as they were? Well, as I’ve toured as a DJ for several years now, and as my catalogue has been remixed and…

ACCESS ALL AREAS FOR NEW DURAN BOOK

A new photobook promises an unparalleled behind-the-scenes glimpse into life on the road with Duran Duran. Photographer Denis O’Regan followed the band on 1984’s Sing Blue Silver Tour compiling the majority of the shots for the new 224-page tome, Careless Memories, from its North American and Japanese legs. Simon Le Bon notes: “Denis got to see a different side of the machine – he saw the cogs going around, and there were times when that wasn’t popular with everybody. Once we saw the photographs, however, we were able to appreciate the potency of it.” As well as his Duran photo journalism, O’Regan documented the punk explosion, covered David Bowie’s Serious Moonlight world tour and has been the official photographer for Coachella, Download and Glastonbury. ● Careless Memories is published by…

ACCESS ALL AREAS FOR NEW DURAN BOOK

RAW ALYSON WILLIAMS New York soul singer Alyson Williams was already an established backing vocalist across North America by the time she released her debut album Raw in 1989. An album of two halves on the urban Def Jam label, it combines low-tempo jazz and R&B ballads, often with co-singers, with a more satisfying sequence of hip-house and New Jack Swing tracks. Opening ballad Just Call My Name has a free-forming Williams beginning a regrettable dual theme of fighting the dominant backing vocals while making the most of an ordinary melody. Aside from the stirring quiet-storm classic, I Need Your Lovin’, (a No.8 hit in the UK), the strongest love song is Masquerade, in which Williams’ rich voice wastes no time becoming the main focus. Generally the slower stuff is…

IAN PEEL‘S A TO Z of POP

A IS FOR... ANTHEMS Iwas recently asked what, on the surface, seems like an easy question. What is the ultimate pop anthem? I think the answer expected was something classically anthemic – the sort of very mid-80s pomp pop of Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me), Cutting Crew’s (I Just) Died in Your Arms, or Mr. Mister’s Kyrie. But I had an idea – surely the ultimate anthems are those recorded by pop groups about themselves, or named after themselves? The first example that came to mind was (perhaps for some) straight out of leftfield. One of the best songs by the now sadly long-forgotten Stephen Lipson-produced Nasty Rox Inc. was titled Nasty Rox Inc. And it summed up their firebrand interpretation of “intergalactic punk rock hip-hop”, as Pop…

IAN PEEL‘S A TO Z of POP

THIS MONTHIN POP NOVEMBER 1982

Michael Jackson released Thriller on 30 November 1982. His sixth solo LP, it saw the singer collaborate once more with Quincy Jones who’d worked his production magic on previous album, Off The Wall. In total, 30 songs were laid down for Thriller, of which nine ended up on the finished album, with sessions taking place from April to November 1982 at Westlake Recording Studios in L.A., with a budget of $750,000. Jackson said he wanted an album where “every song was a killer”, and Thriller is extraordinarily hits-packed. Seven of its tracks would go on to make the US Top 10, with two – Billie Jean and Beat It – hitting No.1. The album itself would become Jacko’s first to top the Billboard chart, spending 37 non-consecutive weeks at No.1.…

THIS MONTHIN POP NOVEMBER 1982

Northern Exposure

“Thisis the way a-ha works, isn’t it? We do a big goodbye tour, we vow never to play again, and two years later we’re back doing shows. In our movie, there was a lot of, ‘We’ll never record again.’ And here we are: new album. I’ve stopped giving thought to all the drama. This is an opportunity to give the fans more songs. That’s as much as I look at it.” Paul Waaktaar-Savoy laughs knowingly. The guitarist is aware that the feuds in a-ha are the stuff of legend now, referred to almost as much as the animation in the Take On Me video. All three of the band know full well that the claim, “They hate each other, really”, follows a-ha around like a sketch show catchphrase. They’re all…

Northern Exposure

CLASSIC ALBUM KICK INXS

Bombastic rock statements that launched or shored up the careers of today’s heavyweights came thick and fast throughout 1987. At the hairier end of the spectrum, was the spit n’ spandex of the Sunset Strip: Guns N’ Roses’ storming debut, alongside Kiss with Crazy Nights, Aerosmith’s Permanent Vacation, and Def Leppard’s Hysteria. U2 went widescreen with The Joshua Tree. Meanwhile, at the poppier end of the charts it was a similar story, with several big players – George Michael’s Faith and Rick Astley’s debut – offering a smoother but equally punchy counterpoint. On their sixth record, Kick, Australia’s finest pop-rock collective INXS effortlessly straddled the two camps – abold, ambitious record occupying a space somewhere between the cocksure posturing of Def Leppard and the taut electro-pop of George Michael. Though…

CLASSIC ALBUM KICK INXS

MICHAEL HUTCHENCE The talismanic, charismatic frontman and co-songwriter who grew into a cultural icon off the back of Kick. ANDREW FARRISS Principally on keyboards and synthesizers, but by now adding guitar to his credits. Andrew co-wrote many of the album’s tracks with Hutchence. One of the more understated members of the band in terms of their visual aesthetic (less INXS, more IT helpdesk), but Farriss’ creative contribution was integral to the entire enterprise. JON FARRISS The drummer, who occasionally wrote songs and produced. Amazingly, he found time during the recording sessions at Rhinoceros Studios to produce Richard Clapton’s Glory Road at the same time, pulling in his band members to perform on the album. TIM FARRISS The guitarist, oldest of the three Farriss brothers, and supposed ‘father figure’ of the…

1 GUNS IN THE SKY INXS announce their arrival with a booming drum-machine loop and stuttering, spluttering vocal grunts, as if the frontman is caught having a coughing fit. In the case of Michael Hutchence, though, it’s an uber cool, nonchalant coughing fit. It’s all wrapped up in a razor-sharp 80s pop production, featuring that obligatory gated snare drum – so of its era – and a primal two-chord guitar groove, that eventually explodes into a fantastic bluesy solo. The result is both shambolically ramshackle, yet studied. Is he really singing, “Dalai Lama, love your hair!” It would appear so. But for all it sounding like a slightly incoherent babble, there are hints of social consciousness, with the imagery referencing global politics and world unrest. 2 NEW SENSATION A key…

NEED YOU TONIGHT/ MEDIATE This award-winning promo apes the album sleeve with the group cut out like idols ripped from a magazine – achieved by chopping up frames of 35mm tape, then reanimating the photocopies. Bare-chested in leather jacket, Hutchence transforms into the pop-rock pin-up, chiselled jaw and great mane of hair. His bandmates are more anonymous in white, their robotic actions akin to Kraftwerk on speed. It then segues into Mediate, riffing on Bob Dylan’s iconic Subterranean Homesick Blues, with the band reeling through handwritten placards in an industrial setting. DEVIL INSIDE The band perform in a dark club, intercut with seductive femme fatale characters, dry ice, motorbikes and skateboarding (another nod to the sleeve). Grainy footage gives a sexually-charged, voyeuristic feeling, in keeping with the lyrics: “she’s raised…

HEARTS AND MINDS

Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill have spent a lot of time in each other’s company over the past 55 years. But in 2020, the lifelong friends and musical fellow travellers found themselves hunkered down in splendid isolation in the Sicilian hills, working up songs for Simple Minds’ next album in a shuttered and deserted hotel (proprietor: J. Kerr) high above the town of Taormina. “Of all the places to be locked down,” smiles Kerr, when Classic Pop catches up with the pair two years on. “It was kind of mystical. The view we had was of Mount Etna, which has a brooding, incredibly powerful presence. But also kind of benevolent. Etna’s almost bang in the centre of the island – when it’s throwing this stuff up into the air, it’s…

HEARTS AND MINDS

THOMPSON TWINS & TOM BAILEY

The Thompson Twins were never two. Once they were four, now they are six, although the number fluctuates to meet needs.” Not Classic Pop’s words in 2022, but the opening sentences to the band’s first feature in The Face, published mere weeks before the release of their debut album. Even then it was necessary to explain the story behind their ever-changing line-up, and those raised on the hits that followed – their opening UK Top 40 strike, 1983’s Love On Your Side, was the first of 10, though they saw no more after 1985 – normally recall them as a trio: Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie and Joe Leeway. The band originally formed in Yorkshire at the height of punk, but by the time they’d selfreleased their first single in 1980,…

THOMPSON TWINS & TOM BAILEY

RON MARK PETERS SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS Q Whendid you first become a superfan of Thompson Twins? A Itwas in 1984 while on a family vacation. I’d just bought my first synth and was playing around with it while watching TV in a hotel room. A music video came on and immediately caught my attention, it was the Thompson Twins’ You Take Me Up. The next day I purchased Into The Gap. I’m a classically trained musician and later learned Tom Bailey is, too. I was hooked, not like a groupie would be, but to the quality, performance and sound of all the music. Q Whatdo you have in your personal collection? A Almosteverything. I have a massive collection of 12” and 7” singles, laserdiscs, eight-track cartridges plus videotapes, picture discs,…

ECLECTIC WARRIORS

Duran and Britpop were never going to get along. Sci-fi dance visionaries in an era of rockist laddism? That’s a tough one, even for a band as indestructible as Duran. uran As Nick Rhodes recalls: “Britpop had some great songs, but it hadn’t exactly changed the face of music.” So, following 1995’s covers album Thank You, Nick, Simon Le Bon, Warren Cuccurullo and John Taylor set out to make a statement. “Britpop’s indie scene hadn’t really done a lot for us,” frets Rhodes. “Aside from hip-hop and R&B, the music of that period wasn’t particularly interesting. So we were looking to do something based on the craziness and arrangements of the music that we’d grown up with: David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, The Beatles, Cockney Rebel, Sparks. “On Bowie’s…

ECLECTIC WARRIORS

Thirty years is a long time in pop culture. In 1992, Liz Truss was an anti-monarchist teenager, Donald Trump was just a businessman with a funny haircut and Harry Styles hadn’t even been born. Few of us had heard of the internet, while Napster, Spotify and iTunes had yet to be invented. It was, in every sense, a different world when Alison Clarkson, aka Betty Boo, released her last record, GRRR! It’s Betty Boo. The last time we spoke to Bet… – oh, let’s just call her Alison – was back in the summer of 2019 when, in answer to our question about new material, she told us: “I feel like it’s the right time, because even people that were before me, like Bananarama, they keep making records and I’m…

Send your Poparazzi pics now to steve.harnell@anthem.co.uk EDDIE LUNDON WITH HAMISH SCOTT I was lucky enough to meet up with Eddie before China Crisis’ gig at Yoshi’s in Oakland, California, on 14 June this year. Both Eddie and bandmate Gary Daly were such fun, meeting up with fans at the bar before the show, signing CDs and having selfies taken – everyone was well looked after. No wonder China Crisis have such a loyal following. PHILIP OAKEY WITH IAN GARROD Here I am in Southend-on-Sea on 15 July, the day before Human League played a gig there. As I explored the town in advance of the show, I was shocked to bump into Philip Oakey in the street. He was such a nice bloke and allowed me to take a…

Nik Kershaw -The Works

For many 80s artists it was the Holy Grail, but ‘doing a George Michael’ – gaining mainstream critical and commercial success after an early pop career as a heartthrob – was much easier said than done. By the end of 1985, Bristol-born, Ipswichraised Nik Kershaw had enjoyed five Top 10 singles and two Top 10 albums, but then his 1986 selfproduced collection, Radio Musicola, failed to set the charts alight. With celeb fans like Elton John and Miles Davis, his musical credentials were never in doubt, but it begged the question: who was actually buying his records? The contemporaneous NME headline said it all: When All The Little Girls Have Grown Up… So when the second half of Kershaw’s Musicola tour was pulled in April 1987, he had little choice…

Nik Kershaw -The Works

What is it? Before baggy, indie and dance were mutually exclusive genres. In the late 80s, few that were shuffling their feet to The Smiths were also sweating it out at the Haçienda to Marshall Jefferson imports. But ecstasy culture smashed down those barriers. Indie melted into dance and dance was absorbed into indie. For a band like the Happy Mondays, who’d grown up listening to traditional rock and pop outfits, discovering those coloured pills wasn’t going to suddenly turn them into 808 State. Instead, they incorporated those blissed-out Balearic rhythms with their own love of Bowie and T-Rex. Getting one of the titans of acid house, Paul Oakenfold, to remix Wrote For Luck and Hallelujah, helped the Mondays become a bona fide club band. Similarly, Primal Scream, whose first…

TOP 2O DOUBLE A-SIDE SINGLES

Double A-sided 7” singles were initially more commonplace in the United States, where Elvis Presley is credited with racking up the most two-sided hits. But, across the Atlantic, it was The Beatles who undoubtedly popularised the format in the UK, releasing a number of classic dual singles in the 60s, including Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane. With a rule here of only one double A-side per artist, we’re focusing on the period 1979 to 1993, when sales of the 7” were still thriving, long before the format sadly died out amid today’s digital age of streaming and downloads. 20 BLUR SHE’S SO HIGH/I KNOW (1990) Working on tracks for their debut single at Battery Studios in June 1990, the future Britpop favourites were unable to decide which song to go with…

TOP 2O DOUBLE A-SIDE SINGLES

SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL

The closing moments of The Breakfast Club when Simple Minds’ Don’t You (Forget About Me) kicks in as the five high-school delinquents finish their Saturday detention. Pretty In Pink’s Duckie sitting on his mattress, pining for Molly Ringwald’s Andie as The Smiths’ Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want plays on. Matthew Broderick miming his way through The Beatles’ Twist And Shout atop a parade float in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Indelible 80s movie moments paired with director John Hughes’ keen ear for pop. If you were a teenager in the 80s, it’s almost inevitable that your life bumped up against a John Hughes movie at least once. Back then, while plenty of directors were making films for teenagers, barely anyone was making them about them. Which is…

SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL

THE HOT LIST 78 Yello, Duran Duran, Jamiroquai, Snap!, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Groove Armada NEW RELEASES 79 a-ha, Betty Boo, Soft Cell/Marc Almond, Simple Minds, David Bowie, Fatboy Slim, Leftfield, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Fizz, Sam Brown, Brian Eno, Spear Of Destiny, Arctic Monkeys, The Cult, Acid Klaus, Danny Goffey, The Damned, Cerrone, Jean-Michel Jarre, Foxton & Hastings, Tegan And Sara, Bernard Butler REISSUES 86 Dexys Midnight Runners, Erasure, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Seal, INXS, NOW, John Hughes, The Human League, Depeche Mode, Kylie Minogue, Debbie Harry, Voice Of The Beehive, The RAH Band, The Selecter, Jesus Jones, Secret Affair, Japan, Howard Jones, Donna Summer, Recoil, Daryl Hall & John Oates, The Bangles LIVE 93 The House Of Love BOOKS 96 Lady Gaga: Applause by Annie Zaleski; Like Punk Never…

1 YELLO EARLY-ERA REISSUE CAMPAIGN Yello reissue their first six studio albums on 28 October – from 1980’s Solid Pleasure to 1988’s Flag – as exclusive doubledisc bundles each comprising the original LPs on black vinyl, combined with a coloured vinyl bonus record with rare versions of their most famous material. 2 DURAN DURAN FUTURE PAST – COMPLETE EDITION For those Duran fans who picked up the first pressing of Future Past on vinyl and missed out on two songs that featured on its CD, here’s a chance to rectify that with the Complete Edition. Released on 25 November, the 2LP set is pressed on red and green vinyl and comprises all 16 tracks from the Japanese version of their 2021 album. The gatefold package features a new silver/grey version…

NOV/D EC2022 CLASSIC POP BEST NEW RELEASE SONY One of the most underrated music documentaries in ages, it’s strange that last year’s a-ha: The Movie isn’t spoken of in the same startled tones as Metallica’s Some Kind Of Monster or Bros’ After The Screaming Stops for depicting a band all too happy to discuss their internal rivalries. At least a-ha made it relatively obvious that they respect one another. But it was also very apparent that a new LP to follow 2015’s Cast In Steel would need a miracle. This being a-ha, welcome to their miraculous 11th album. As the band admit in this issue, the diplomacy involved was worthy of Middle East peace talks. It’s no coincidence that Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy each get to write the same…

ABSOLUTE Although there have been low-key collaborations with The Feeling, Blur’s Alex James and an underground dance single with Jack Rokka, at the start of the century Betty Boo had seemed happy to be a songwriter under her real name, Alison Clarkson, rather than continue performing. Songs for Girls Aloud, Hear’Say and Dannii Minogue piled up. But Clarkson was always too much of an artist to properly conform, both during her early-90s heyday and behind the scenes. Having tested the public’s appetite for her return on the nostalgia circuit since 2014, Boomerang is Betty’s first album in 30 years. Smart use of the riff from The Human League’s Love Action helped make Get Me To The Weekend a sensational comeback single, and it’s a standard that Boo/Clarkson maintains throughout her…

SOFT CELL/MARC ALMOND

LIVEHERENOW/CHERRY RED Typically for Soft Cell, their second post-reunion live album is more refined than the mammoth Say Hello Wave Goodbye: The O2 document which captured the duo’s arena return in 2018. First time out, Marc Almond and Dave Ball were improvising heroically in a manner entirely befitting their 80s concerts. By the 2021 tour-previewing mighty comeback album *Happiness Not Included, Soft Cell were back up to speed. They were, whisper it, polished. Another well-packaged collection highlights what a perfect pop noir album Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret remains, Almond still capable of spitting Chips On My Shoulder as the mid-point between Pet Shop Boys and The Streets. Having blitzed through the expected classics at The O2, the 2021 tour allowed Soft Cell to dust down fans’ seedier favourites: Kitchen Sink Drama…

SOFT CELL/MARC ALMOND

BMG “Promised you a miracle,” Jim Kerr announced on Simple Minds’ fifth studio album, New Gold Dream, and they certainly came good on that commitment. That single provided the Scots with their first UK Top 40 hit, while its parent LP signalled a long-term change in the band’s commercial fortunes. Forty years on, their 18th LP makes no such commitments. But, if the 21st Century initially looked like it had left the band behind, recent albums – not least 2018’s Walk Between Worlds – suggested otherwise. Direction Of The Heart will doubtless maintain the last decade’s chart-tickling run, and including an updated interpretation of their debut demo’s exhilarating Act of Love will do them no harm. Its youthful pounding ambitions are merely more polished now and, like Solstice Kiss, whose…

PARLOPHONE Nearly seven years after his death, the David Bowie legacy industry shows no sign of running out of steam. Indeed, at a point when you might expect Bowieologists to have exhausted every variation of his storied life, along comes Brett Morgen’s dazzlingly kaleidoscopic cinematic elegy Moonage Daydream, rewriting the rules of the rock doc in a manner of which its subject would surely have approved. The film’s soundtrack album successfully bottles the same cosmic energy, with a dreamlike soundscape of previously unreleased live tracks (including The Jean Genie playfully spliced with Love Me Do), rarities, an orchestral interlude and exclusive remixes, punctuated by spokenword clips of Bowie’s gnomic existential reveries. It all adds up to a genuinely new way of experiencing the music of Bowie. Meanwhile, the latest in…

BMG/SKINT Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the record-breaking Big Beach Boutique 2 event in Brighton, this LP-sized boxset houses Fatboy Slim’s show, 2012’s Big Beach Boutique 5 and a 48-page deluxe book featuring journalist Ralph Moore’s excellently researched sleevenotes. In the concert film on the package’s DVD, Norman Cook admits he had to play it safe with his 2002 setlist, pointing out how embarrassing it would have been if 250,000 people had wandered off, so you’d better play songs everyone knows. Cook couldn’t have known people would still care 20 years on, but it means Right Here, Right Then works as a sort of Now Noughties Dance timeless document of the era’s rave-pop. Mint Royale’s Sexiest Man In Jamaica and Tim DeLuxe’s It Just Won’t Do rarely get attention now,…

POD MUSIC/NOVA “It’s okay to be broken, it’s okay to be blue,” sings Sam Brown at the start of her first full album since 2007. Brown’s vocals were damaged that year by a condition she discusses earlier in this issue. You’d call it heartbreaking but, as she sings later in Injured: “I will not hide, don’t pity me and sigh.” And that’s fair enough: if circumstances mean Brown doesn’t have the vocal range that made her UK Top 5 single Stop! one of the 80s’ supreme ballads, Number 8 demonstrates singing is about passion and commitment, and not technique. Not For Anyone and Tribe could have become her familiar smoky jazz, but most of the album is a startling and confident reinvention as Alison Moyet’s sterner cousin, while 4 To…

CARLY RAE JEPSEN

INTERSCOPE Ever since the wondrous Call Me Maybe reached No.1 in 2011, Canadian popster Carly Rae Jepsen has, largely unfairly, been overlooked. She last had a Top 40 hit seven years ago, while her albums have successively performed slightly worse. Her fourth full LP finding Jepsen at a crossroads, she appears to have decided to ditch aiming to chase instant pop success and instead commit herself to a long-haul career. The single Beach House showed Jepsen can still inject an actual personality into pitch-perfect modern production, but it’s on the vintage disco of Bad Thing Twice and Sideways’ elegant funk – as much Carly Simon as Carly Rae – where Jepsen shows she might enjoy a more fruitful second decade in pop. Western Wind is timeless and stately but also…

CARLY RAE JEPSEN

MPG Proving that you can’t keep a good band down, even if one of its former members is difficult to work with and not letting them use their original name, The Fizz, aka Cheryl, Mike and Jay, return with their fourth sans-Bucks album to continue their gambol around pop’s anniversary circuit. Produced by pop’s onion-knower Mike Stock, Everything Under The Sun is literally that. Despite early reports of a new direction and a few different flavours, The Fizz’s 40th anniversary album hasn’t strayed too far from their traditional blend of cheery singalong pop. There’s no dabbling in exploratory soundscapes here, it’s The Fizz operating at the level they’re experts at. They’ve chopped up all the best bits of 80s pop and liberally sprinkled it across 10 tracks, showing there’s still…

VIRGIN Having split in 2002, This Is What We Do is Leftfield’s second album since Neil Barnes carried on the name 12 years ago. Intended to be an optimistic outpouring after surviving a major health scare in lockdown, Barnes largely manages to marry the head-nodding thoughtful side of Leftfield alongside their nihilistic rave roots. The latter is best represented by Accumulator, a frantic clatter to excite anyone wanting new Leftfield to go toe-to-toe with Phat Planet. Fontaines DC singer Grian Chatten similarly guides Full Way Round with a menacing charm worthy of Leftfield and John Lydon’s incandescent Open Up. Poet Lemn Sissay also proves an adept vocal foil, too, on the insistent Making A Difference. Where This Is What We Do occasionally falters is failing to tether Barnes’ dub side…

UMC Moved by the global climate change catastrophe, Brian Eno’s vocals dominate the majority of one of his solo albums for the first time since 2005’s Another Day On Earth. While a hymn-like solemnity is the abiding atmosphere here, these songs are a call for self-reflection rather than pronouncements from upon high. Eno offers no easy answers or political solutions although it’s abundantly clear he feels we’re not blameless in the ecological predicament we find ourselves in. Eerily, There Were Bells received its live premiere when Eno performed at the Acropolis in Athens last summer – the stage bathed in smoke as wildfires raged in the surrounding Greek countryside. Eno’s vocals, aged in a lower register than his early solo work, bring a gravitas to proceedings, as a dense soundscape…

SPEAR OF DESTINY

EASTERSNOW Kirk Brandon’s vocals offer a familiar sombre feel across the 13 tracks on Spear Of Destiny’s 15th studio album. As the world emerges from a tumultuous period of torrid challenge, there’s a reflective sense of agitation on Clarion Call as well as the likes of Shine, Neolithic By Design and Pilgrim. It’s here where the presence of saxophonist Clive Osborne and keyboard player Steve Allan Jones also come to the fore. A doom-laden drama gives way to folk horror whimsy on Ballad Of The Dog, before returning tenfold via the gothic ambience of Waster. The current Spear Of Destiny line-up is its longest serving, and there’s a rich fluidity throughout the new album, neatly highlighted on Coward 306, Bread & Circuses, and Forever Their England – which features some…

SPEAR OF DESTINY

DOMINO Four years ago, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino seemed an interesting diversion for Britain’s biggest modern band. Like Arctic Monkeys’ metal album Humbug, it was a worthy experiment, a retro sci-fi sheen fitting for Alex Turner’s otherworldly lyrics. Trouble is, it was no one-off. Instead, the Arctics have made virtually the same LP again, only with even less lineage to their headrush roots. Only on I Ain’t Quite Sure Where I Think I Am does the brilliant Jamie Cook get to cut loose, with a sleazy funk guitar much missed elsewhere. Hello You is the other standout, resembling Wings in its unhurried ability to make knockabout pop seem like it truly matters. But that’s pretty much your lot for memorable melodies on an album where Turner, back to tackling…

BLACK HILL RECORDS It’s 3am at Finland’s Provinssirock festival and The Cult’s Ian Astbury is undergoing an epiphany. As the album’s title here suggests, he’s experiencing the natural phenomenon that happens from June to July each year north of the Arctic Circle where the sun never sets. An eerie sight at the event, it was the creative jumping off point for The Cult’s first studio LP in six years. Ever the mystical poet, Astbury’s lyrics are often elusive – opener Mirror alludes to a dreamlike quality that pervades the album: “A vision of you suspended in a fever dream…” You can grab hold of Billy Duffy’s guitar contributions with both hands, though – his knack for melding chiming guitars and chunky riffs remains intact – delivering a searing solo and…

DEMON Not content with re-recording all his vocals for the recent reissue of his 1998 solo debut, People Move On, Bernard Butler now offers stripped back, acoustic takes on five of the album’s tracks (plus B-side My Domain), captured at the former’s in-store launch event in January this year. (Are you following this, or should we draw you a diagram?) With bluesy licks and a weathered croon that recalls Cherry Ghost – or even Neil Diamond – this earthier version of Butler feels a very long way from Suede. But like the man says: people move on. PK…

MOM & POP Tying in with High School, the TV series based on their memoirs, Canadian twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin throw out their rulebook. They examine vulnerability, relationships and the hassles of growing up, while managing to sound both urgent and tense, effortless and relaxed. I Can’t Grow Up is a storming opener, while Fucking Up What Matters and This Ain’t Going Well are anthems for anyone emotionally throwing rocks at themselves, before things calm down a tad on closer Whatever That Was. All told, Crybaby is a triumph of bracing futurepop. IW…

FOXTON & HASTINGS

BASS TONE Following Back In The Room in 2012 and Smash The Clock four years later, From The Jam’s Bruce Foxton and Russell Hastings return with LP three and 12 fresh tunes brimming with blue-eyed soul and gentle 60s pop vibes. Described by Foxton as “a collection of very melodic songs, with very different angles,” there’s little in the way of gear-changing going on, but standouts such as Circles, Time On Your Side, Two Of Us and closer Anything You Want, add a bright and breezy splash of colour which elevate The Butterfly Effect way above being a staid Jam tribute act. DB…

FOXTON & HASTINGS

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE

SONY Inspired by the French musique concrete movement of the 1940s and a tribute to composer Pierre Henry, Jean-Michel Jarre’s 22nd studio album Oxymore’s outré beginnings in reality translate into an intriguing collection of nuanced, pulsing electronica. Oblique vocal samples add texture but there’s enough beat-driven coherence here that they also work as club-friendly synth-pop. Boasting the Aphex Twin-like wooziness of Sonic Land and crunchiness of highlight Sex In The Machine, there’s also room for hands-in-the-air floorfillers such as Brutalism and Epica. SH…

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE

BECAUSE Never quite as feted as his contemporary Giorgio Moroder, Marc Cerrone is the other Eurodisco pioneer, best known for his 1978 hit, Supernature. This is a hits package, with many tracks remixed by younger producers, including Purple Disco Machine, Dimitri From Paris and Joey Negro. Not that any of their reworkings could be considered radical interpretations. They all fit seamlessly here into a continuous 68-minute suite by Cerrone himself. Ideal for pre-going out listening or that impromptu kitchen disco. Will Simpson…

EARMUSIC The Damned are in their theatrical element for this London Palladium live show recorded back in 2019. Highlights include a fiery Standing On The Edge Of Tomorrow and the baroque pop of Grimly Fiendish. Barry Ryan cover Eloise, complete with string section, remains rattlingly good fun. Meanwhile, a mash-up of Neat Neat Neat and Bela Lugosi’s Dead is inspired, with Captain Sensible in full-on Hendrix mode. The release’s 2CD version includes a feature-length Blu-ray. Macabre delights abound. SH…

DISTILLER The first new music to emerge from any of Supergrass since their joyful reunion, Goffey’s third outing is far superior than “Britpop drummer’s solo album” would suggest. Back Into The Water is a magical Madness and Beach Boys union, The Left Side and Everybody’s On Drugs would be celebrated were ‘Supergrass’ to be on the label and Dog Eats Dog snarls like Ian Dury. Only a couple of iffy excursions into full-on funk prevent Goffey’s alter ego Bryan Moone from becoming a vital new name in pop. JE…

ZEN FC The first LP on indie darlings Yard Act’s own label, Acid Klaus is Adrian Flanagan of International Teachers Of Pop. Bandmate Dean Honer co-produces, but Klaus is an outlet for Flanagan’s dance side. A phenomenal vortex of doof, Elevate and Blow Your Speakers make The Chemical Brothers look like James Blake, while Bethlehem Or Bust burbles like an update of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. Maxine Peake and Richard Hawley are among the guests, but Flanagan’s hilarious politicising on Bad Club steals his own stupendous late-night show. JE…

DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS

NOC/DEC 2022 CLASSIC POP BEST REISSUE UMC/MERCURY Anyone who’s heard Old or Come On Eileen from the freshly polished incarnation of Dexys’ most commercially successful album might be wondering what the fuss is about. Listened to on a phone, the new arrangements by Helen O’Hara and long-time Dexys producer Pete Schwier aren’t so different from the original mix by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley which has troubled Kevin Rowland so much for 40 years. In that regard, this anniversary reworking should be approached in a similar vein to The Beatles’ recent mixes by Giles Martin. It’s evolution, not revolution, or so it appears initially. After a while – and CP has been lucky to hear the new mix for most of 2022 – going back to the original jars. O’Hara…

DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS

BMG/MUTE While the previous year’s I Say I Say I Say had reached No.1, 1995’s self-titled seventh Erasure album limped in at No.14. As well as its release at the height of anti-synth laddism in Britpop, Erasure appears to be paying for the sins of its overly busy predecessor, as it’s a much better record, given 27 years’ distance to reflect on its atypical charms. As with many self-titled albums released in the middle of an artist’s career, Erasure is a radical reinvention. Virtually filling up an entire CD at 71 minutes, its shortest full song, Angel, still lasts five-and-a-half minutes. Rock Me Gently is one of Erasure’s most haunting ballads, but at exactly 10 minutes long it’s not one for the casuals. Best known as a long-time member of…

SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES

UMC Since the final Banshees tour in 2002 and her only solo album Mantaray five years later, Siouxsie Sioux has maintained an imperious silence, not promoting the (fairly middling) Banshees reissue series in 2014. Siouxsie curating a new vinyl Banshees compilation is thus impossibly exciting. She’s even written a seven-word explainer in the press release! All Souls is, says Siouxsie: “A seasonal selection for you to enjoy.” A Christmas album being a step too far for The Banshees, these 10 tracks are roughly themed around Halloween and Mexico’s Day Of The Dead, down to the suitably enigmatic marigold representing the Mexican festival on the sleeve. Mostly drawn from the second half of The Banshees’ peak run, from 1981-88, the three singles include the barely altered 12” of Fireworks and hypnotic…

SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES

RHINO Long overdue some reassessment, Seal seems to have been largely taken for granted this past decade. His previous five albums have shrugged into the chart between numbers 11-20; his last Top 10 album, IV, was way back in 2003. Living in the United States for years, Seal hasn’t played back home in the UK since 2018, and he deserves to be performing in larger venues than the concert halls he toured four years ago. He’s remained an enigma, aloof from commercial concerns, but this 4CD/2LP boxset of Seal’s debut album will hopefully reignite interest. It should also remind people that Trevor Horn isn’t solely “Him off the 80s”, too. Horn and Seal have worked together almost constantly since, and their first journey together served notice that the acclaimed producer…

UMC/PETROL Despite its terrible title, named after the rhythmic sound in single Spy Of Love, Shabooh Shoobah proved pivotal in the INXS story. The Aussies’ third LP was the first with producer Mark Opitz and first to make waves internationally (us Brits would only truly jump on board with Kick). It ultimately announced Michael Hutchence as one of his generation’s most magnetic frontmen. Boasting some of the band’s strongest pre-imperial phase work, including the strident new wave punch of The One Thing, gothic-tinged To Look At You and widescreen heartland rock of stone-cold classic Don’t Change (the last song INXS played live), the album has largely aged like a fine Merlot. Interestingly, Hutchence barely features on the relative obscurities accompanying the LP’s digital reissue’s extras (it’s also back out on…

VARIOUS ARTISTS

NOW After moving back in time to 1979, the ever-winning Now Yearbook series leaps forward to 1985, with a bumper 79-track 4CD (or 45-track 3LP). A transitional year for the decade, Band Aid had swept away the New Pop revolution, but a fresh wave of artists were en route – a fine rollcall spanning the likes of a-ha, Dead Or Alive, Whitney and Simply Red to Colonel Abrams, Fine Young Cannibals and King. Essential chart-toppers include 19, I Know Him So Well, Move Closer, and Easy Lover. Meanwhile, Extra ’79 mops up even more goodness with an additional 67-track 3CD set, featuring After The Love Has Gone, The Number One Song In Heaven, Is It Love You’re After, The Boss, Death Disco and Union City Blue among the avalanche of…

VARIOUS ARTISTS

BMG Released at a time when pop stars were expected to stay in their lane, the infamous ‘IndieKylie’ tag has haunted Minogue’s feelings about her sixth album ever since its release in 1997. Manic Street Preachers co-wrote Some Kind Of Bliss and I Don’t Need Anyone, both fitting their anthemic style of the era. But that’s the only rock on an album overshadowed by Kylie’s then-new friendship with Nick Cave and, unwisely in retrospect, releasing …Bliss as the first single. What’s remarkable about Impossible Princess is its lyrical depth, and how many bangers there are which Kylie has kept hidden because of her sadness at the LP’s commercial failure: it sold only 20,000 in its first month. Belatedly getting a vinyl release, maybe the 25th anniversary will allow casuals to…

THE HUMAN LEAGUE

UMC/VIRGIN Something of a misnomer, this vinyl boxset omits The Human League’s first two albums, although they too were on Virgin. The Chart Years or Ian Craig Who? presumably being too close to home as titles, The Virgin Years compiles the four albums from Dare to Romantic?. It also houses the fabulous Japanese mini-album Fascination!, featuring standalone singles (Keep Feeling) Fascination and Mirror Man as well as their three superb B-sides. Dare is one of the greatest albums ever made and surely one Classic Pop readers own by now. After overthinking matters and failing to include those standalone classics, Hysteria inevitably remains in Dare’s shadow, but is still a terrific pop blast by 99% of other bands’ standards. The disputes between band and producers Jam & Lewis can overshadow what…

THE HUMAN LEAGUE

SONY Effectively the last hurrah for multi-format physical singles, the releases from 2005’s 11th Depeche Mode album also saw the trio benefit from a healthy dance music scene. Whereas Exciter’s remixers were from the murkier edges of clubland, Playing The Angel arrived during electroclash’s pomp. In his Jacques Lu Cont guise, Stuart Price turns A Pain That I’m Used To into a glistening, filthy romp, before Tiga gets similarly shiny with Suffer Well. That same single then goes into a completely different realm as M83 does his spacey, stargazing atmospherics to perfection. There’s so much going on – check Sasha’s vintage comedown mood in Precious – that Goldfrapp are relegated to the 10-track bonus disc, a new and welcome idea for Mode’s 12” boxsets of material that doesn’t fit elsewhere. Goldfrapp’s…

VARIOUS ARTISTS

EDSEL/DEMON No movie director in the 80s spun tunes like John Hughes. That run of teen-flick classics – from Sixteen Candles through to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off via the likes of The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink – virtually invented the needle-drop soundtrack. Finally, Hughes’ music supervisor Tarquin Gotch has masterminded a vast 74-track 4CD/73-track 6LP boxset that now collects together many of those songs in one place. What marks this compilation out is how deep Hughes – and Gotch – went for their cuts. While other movies of the era chased the latest pop wonder or pulled some past jukebox fave, Hughes’ films gave a platform to more alternative – and often British – fare. What other Hollywood moviemaker would reach for Dr Calculus’ Full Of Love (from…

VARIOUS ARTISTS

CHRYSALIS Debbie Harry recently told Classic Pop of her delight that her debut solo album is finally coming back out, feeling KooKoo has been unfairly neglected since its release in 1981. As a historical document, it’s certainly valuable as the first album Chic’s Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards produced in the pure pop realm. Yet half of the record now sounds rushed and too loose, with Military Rap a step backwards from Rapture, and The Jam Was Moving resembling an 80s Eastern European cartoon theme. Jump Jump has the potential for Olivia Newton-John style calisthenics, but is hamstrung by Harry’s scattergun vocal, not one you suspect Blondie producer Mike Chapman would have let slide. At least the good moments are what you’d hope for from Chic x Blondie. Surrender and…

VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE

LONDON Initially discovered by Food label boss Andy Ross, Californian sisters Tracey Bryn and Melissa Brooke Belland teamed up with Madness’ recently dissolved rhythm section Mark Bedford and Dan Woodgate for an energetic 1988 debut album. Raucous hits Don’t Call Me Baby and I Say Nothing showcased a knack for fierce independence wrapped in rowdy bubblegum harmonies and glam backing, carried on with There’s A Barbarian In The Back Of My Car and Trust Me. The ballads were less nimble, however, with Man In The Moon twee next to the up-tempo moves and Oh Love a queasy mix of Mamas And The Papas melodies and The Wonder Stuff indie-folk guitars in vogue at the time. It’s intriguing that much better balladry lurks on the stately anthemics of Independence Day, one…

VOICE OF THE BEEHIVE

CHERRY RED Formed by multi-instrumentalist Richard Anthony Hewson in 1977, The RAH Band began life in his bedroom in Stockton-on-Tees, where he recorded a series of instrumentals including glam banger The Crunch, a UK No.6. This 71-track 5CD boxset contains expanded versions of the first three albums: The Crunch & Beyond, RAH Band and Going Up from 1978-83, alongside two further discs of edits and remixes. On The Crunch & Beyond, numbers such as the jazzy astral blast of Concrete, Porridge and Electric Fling can be described as Crunch-y, and appear to invent mid-noughties Goldfrapp as a bonus. There’s room for the cyber-reggae of Anybody Out There, while Turkey Roll and Vampire Vamp have the air of futurist library music. Disco seeps in on the glossier second LP, along with…

CHRYSALIS Following the reissue of 2-Tone’s classic Too Much Pressure, Chrysalis turns its attention to The Selecter’s 1981 second outing, Celebrate The Bullet. Given the blistering vim and biting vigour of the previous offering, album two was a more measured affair. While lyrically holding steadfast to the collective’s commentary on racial and social issues, behind the scenes the band were starting to splinter, following the departure of bassist Charley Anderson and keyboardist Desmond Brown. Now comprising mainstay vocalists Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson, founding guitarists Neol Davies and Compton Amanor, returning drummer Charlie ‘H’ Bembridge, plus James Mackie on keys and sax and bassist Adam Williams, The Selecter bounced back with an expanded new sound. Following the murder of John Lennon and assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, the…

MUSIC ON VINYL The Bangles’ most successful album found them shedding their 60s garage-rock skin and slipping into heavy-rotation MTV stardom. You’ll already be familiar with the hits – Manic Monday and Walk Like An Egyptian – but there’s far more interesting stuff here, including the spirited title track and a cover of Big Star’s September Gurls, with its none-more-’67 backwards guitar solo: both reminders of their role in the early 80s Paisley Underground scene. They’d last one more LP before imploding, but here the grit and gloss balance nicely. Will Simpson…

DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES

BMG When US pop-rock giants Daryl Hall and John Oates released Do It For Love in February 2003, it was their first album of new material in six years. Truth is, though, the pair’s 16th LP sounds as if it could have arrived in 1983 or 1993… although that’s no bad thing. Few American artists do blue-eyed soul with as much skill and sincerity as Hall and Oates, whether it’s in the yacht-rock stylings of the title track or in the West Coast radiance of Todd Rundgren team-up, Someday We’ll Know. SO…

DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES

DEMON Having invented the future and been one of the biggest artists on the planet, as the 80s arrived Donna Summer hooked up with Quincy Jones, doing a dry run ahead of his next job: something called Thriller. The result was 1982’s stunning self-titled ninth album. With highlights including Love Is In Control (Finger On The Trigger), the Springsteen-written Protection and the glorious State Of Independence (seriously, everyone guests on that), this 40th anniversary reissue with bonuses galore is an essential reminder of an artist at the top of their game. IW…

CHERRY RED The remastering on this CD/DVD set of Jones’ laser-beaming 1984 spectacle finds the electropop maestro at his peak. Putting Ed Sheeran’s one-man shows to shame, Jones holds court while juggling a bank of synths and delightfully odd choreography with partner-in-mime Jed. He has the audience hanging on every note, performing everything but the title track from debut LP Human’s Lib, with a crowd-wading Like To Get To Know You Well proving more was to come. A brief, piano-led Hey Jude, only on the CD, will most intrigue fans. JO…

UMC Japan died young, leaving a body of work that – on this 1984 compilation reissued on vinyl – reminds of the incorruptible corpses of dead saints. The music is glacial, blemish free and frozen outside of time. Ghosts and Quiet Life certainly don’t sound over 40, while Talking Drum and Life Without Buildings are like blueprints from a pop future never explored. The remastering and repackaging is impeccable; no-one did detail like Japan. Rarely has pop music sounded so simultaneously young, doomed and beautiful. Anthony Reynolds…

DEMON A 2CD set or cut-down 14-song LP, this new compilation highlights the most successful of the Mod revivalists to follow The Jam. Ian Page’s impassioned vocals and David Cairns’ tight guitars ensured that Secret Affair had the craft to match their conviction, with Time For Action and My World bright, bold Top 20 hits. After three albums of tuneful noise, the Londoners split. A raucous cover of Frank Wilson’s scene classic Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) shows the band are still pretty cool since reforming a decade ago. JE…

DEMON Heroically thorough, this 15CD boxset adds 131 extra tracks to the six albums by the indie-dance gang behind International Bright Young Thing. Casuals will be better off with the new 2LP Zeroes And Ones Best Of, but this box is a reminder of how vital Jesus Jones seemed when Info Freako was a thrilling precursor to The Prodigy. Proper US success followed and, while they ran out of steam after two albums, 2018 comeback LP Passages regained those early crossover thrills. Often intense, but don’t listen to this all at once, ferchrissakes. JE…

THE HOUSE OF LOVE

14 SEPTEMBER It’s all too easy to overlook The House Of Love. Sandwiched in that gap between The Smiths’ vanishing and Suede’s arrival, it’s a period that’s typically seen as dominated by US grunge. But for a brief time in the late 80s and early 90s, Guy Chadwick and company ruled the British indie guitar roost. The biggest band on Alan McGee’s Creation at that time – alabel that put out a lot of records (and not all of them good) – they then successfully moved a major label with 1990’s second (or third, depending on how you read their early discography) self-titled LP. With a distinctive songwriter/frontman in Guy Chadwick, and a highlyrated guitarist in Terry Bickers, they had it all – aperfect swirl of English psychedelia, the Velvets,…

THE HOUSE OF LOVE

LADY GAGA: APPLAUSE

PALAZZO EDITIONS Almost 15 years on from Lady Gaga’s breakthrough with Just Dance, the pop superstar has consistently shapeshifted and displayed a versatility which has seen her metamorphose from club kid to rock star, jazz chanteuse to dive-bar diva, Oscar winner to Oreo saleswoman (yes, really!). Her many incarnations are displayed in all their glory in Annie Zaleski’s Applause. More a celebration of the singer’s illustrious career to date than a comprehensive biography, the book is superbly illustrated throughout, taking in her live performances, stage shows and opulent red carpet fashion statements – atestament to Gaga’s stylistic vision and attention to detail, which raises her above most of her peers. As comfortable onstage with Tony Bennett and Julie Andrews as she is with Metallica and Pet Shop Boys, Gaga’s career…

LADY GAGA: APPLAUSE

LIKE PUNK NEVER HAPPENED: CULTURE CLUB AND THE NEW POP

FABER Originally published in 1985, former Smash Hits scribe Dave Rimmer’s engrossing exposé of the Culture Club story sent shockwaves through planet pop as it was the first public confirmation of the relationship between Boy George and drummer Jon Moss – anotoriously volatile union that inspired much of the band’s material. Granted unrivalled access thanks to his role at the iconic pop bible, Rimmer’s acceptance into the group’s inner circle provides a startling insight into the machinations of one of the era’s biggest successes direct from the eye of the storm. Though the focus is very much on Culture Club, the author also casts his gaze further afield to other successful figures of the period, illustrating how Adam Ant, Malcolm McLaren and Duran Duran shaped the music business as we…

LIKE PUNK NEVER HAPPENED: CULTURE CLUB AND THE NEW POP

A DIFFERENT STAGE

PENGUIN MICHAEL JOSEPH Published as an accompaniment to his biographical live show, A Different Stage, which combines music and storytelling, Barlow’s book of the same name invites fans to join him on an intimate journey through his life, pinpointing the songs – both his own and others which evoke specific memories – and moments which have shaped the man he is today. From working men’s clubs to Wembley, the book recounts, in intimate detail, Barlow’s rollercoaster life which has taken him from struggling songwriter to pop idol, fallen star to comeback kid, TV talent show judge to legacy artist. Barlow covers much ground already disclosed in previous books including his rise to fame and dramatic fall from grace, personal tragedy and mental health struggles, bulimia, as well as his all-consuming…

A DIFFERENT STAGE

MIXTAPE: 21 SONGS FROM 10 YEARS (1975-1985)

NEW HAVEN PUBLISHING The latest in an emerging trend for books based on the tracklisting of compilation albums, Fiona McQuarrie’s Mixtape, as the title suggests, takes the author’s personal selection of songs from a formative, character-building decade of her life and tells their story. Selected from between 1975 and 1985, a decade in which disco, punk, newwave, synth-pop and yacht rock thrived, Mixtape attempts to cover all bases – a premise which has its positive aspects and drawbacks. Each chapter focuses on a track from an eclectic playlist and includes artists such as The Rubettes, Roxy Music, Paul Young, Kate Bush, Talking Heads as well as Dire Straits, The Waterboys and Madness. McQuarrie then delves into each of the songs, offering up a wealth of information about their inspiration, creation,…

MIXTAPE: 21 SONGS FROM 10 YEARS (1975-1985)

OMD RELEASE ARCHITECTURE & MORALITY

CLASSIC POP MOMENTS When Architecture & Morality was released in November 1981, it was Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s third LP in just under two years. By now a four-piece (drummer Malcolm Holmes and saxophonist Martin Cooper had joined as full-time members in 1980), they’d entered the studio with aims of broadening their sound. As Andy McCluskey told the BBC in 2006: “Having done a first album of sort of garage/punk/electronic and the second album that was a lot more dark and gothic and inspired by Joy Division, I think we were looking for a new direction and found a lot of influence in the emotional power of religious music.” Recording took place over two months at The Manor Studio at Shipton-on-Cherwell, with additional sessions completed at the band’s own…

OMD RELEASE ARCHITECTURE & MORALITY

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