Tabla de contenidos para September - October 2022 en Classic Pop

Soft Cell have a new live album and DVD on the way to celebrate last year’s acclaimed reunion shows. Released on 7 October via LiveHereNow, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret… And Other Stories: Live was captured in November 2021 at one of Soft Cell’s sell-out concerts at London’s Hammersmith Apollo to mark the 40th anniversary of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret. The shows, which were staged in two acts, saw the duo’s iconic 1981 debut album performed in full for the very first time, plus a further career-spanning collection and cuts from their then-unreleased latest long-player, *Happiness Not Included. Joining Marc Almond and Dave Ball on stage for the two-and-a-half hour gigs were saxophonist Gary Barnacle and four backing singers. As well as the initial CD and DVD options, further vinyl formats are expected…

Movie soundtrack fans will have the chance to get their hands on the first official compilation of music from the filmmaker John Hughes. Curated by the director’s music supervisor Tarquin Gotch and covering 1983 to 1989, the 74-track 4CD boxset Life Moves Pretty Fast will be released on 11 November via Demon/Edsel. Hughes’ extensive use of pop and rock in his movies revolutionised the way Hollywood incorporated music on the big screen. The collection effectively operates as a who’s who of 80s pop, rock and indie, from the acclaimed likes of New Order, Kate Bush and Simple Minds to cult artists including Oingo Boingo, Dr Calculus, Gene Loves Jezebel and Belouis Some. Hughes’ son James gave an insight into his father’s relationship with music: “[The boxset] serves as a reminder…

The richness of Anita Baker’s voice resonates immaculately through a superb third album that confirmed her status as the finest R&B singer of her era. Appearing in the mind’s eye on songs such as the exquisite Lead Me Into Love and the heartfelt title track is the image of Baker eyeing the crowd while perched on the edge of the piano. Good Love follows a similarly mellow path, with some soothing harmonies on top, while the poppy album opener Priceless and mid-tempo Just Because, with a beautiful electric piano backing, maintains the romantic feel of the whole LP. Meanwhile, the final track, You Belong To Me, is a proper dance-pop effort that draws the record furthest away from its dominant jazz influences. The album made No.1 in the United States…

“50% of people think Blondie is Debbie. And in a way sheis Blondie, but it’s the band, too”: Clem Burke on the group’s iconic lead singer Initially scheduled for release four years ago, Blondie’s first major boxset, Against The Odds, is literally one of the biggest collections Classic Pop has ever encountered. Our postman hasn’t stopped scowling since having to lug it from the van. The set comprises 10 vinyl albums, two singles and two hardback books, with even the cardboard mailing parcel unique: it’s got a monochrome vintage photo of Debbie Harry stamped on the inside. No wonder even Blondie’s usually deadpan guitarist Chris Stein is animated discussing the venture. “It looks amazing,” he enthuses. “I didn’t realise just how grand that boxset was going to be as a…

Astrong live following on the Isle Of Wight and in the Home Counties’ nascent Britfunk scene, plus an album recorded for an indie label (of which more later), had led Polydor Records in hot pursuit of gifted young four-piece Level 42: Mark King on bass/vocals, Mike Lindup on keyboards/vocals, Rowland ‘Boon’ Gould on guitar and Phil Gould on drums. A five-album deal was brokered and the lads quickly embarked on recording their major-label debut with legendary Bluesbreakers/ Fleetwood Mac producer Mike Vernon, based at Chipping Norton Studios in the Cotswolds. After further sessions at London’s Red Bus, Marcus Studios and the apparently very haunted Vineyard studios, the result was an irresistible mix of funk, jazz, pop, rock, soul and Latin – astrikingly assured, lush and tasteful record, with just enough…

1 HAPPY MONDAYS TART TART As a tribute to their late bassist Paul Ryder, the Mondays have released a three-track digital EP of Squirrel And G-Man… lead single Tart Tart from 1987. In addition to its 2009 remaster are two unreleased versions: the first a John Peel Session from 1989 plus a live cut culled from a Sheffield University show that year. Shaun Ryder explains: “This special release of Tart Tart showcases the unique musical talent of our brother Paul Ryder who passed from this world. We will all miss you Horse. He brought the funk and the rock’n’roll to Happy Mondays.” All profits from the release will be donated to Music Cares, a charity which was chosen by Paul’s daughter Amelia. 2 BRIAN ENO FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE It’s been 17 years…

COLUMBIA ★★★★ The orchestral makeover trend has seen everyone from Peter Gabriel to Pete Tong and even Metallica giving their back catalogues a symphonic scrub-up, with mixed results. Now, marking 25 years of solo superstardom, it’s Robbie Williams’ turn to get some proper musicians in. But, rather than go with the usual London Symphony or Royal Philharmonic, Williams and his team – including long-time wingman Guy Chambers – have hooked up with Dutch jazz-pop ensemble Metropole Orkest. It’s an inspired move that feels akin to a meeting of musical like-minds, as opposed to a bunch of players slumming it between Rachmaninovs. They’ve also largely shied away from radical reinventions. Unlike Take That’s Odyssey, on which the majestic Rule The World was “re-imagined” to death, no Williams classics were harmed in…

PARTISAN ★★★★ It’s been two decades and change since Beth Orton’s patented brand of folktronica – forged from early collaborations with the likes of William Orbit and The Chemical Brothers – saw her dubbed Britain’s comedown queen. In the years since, she’s flipped back and forth between the folk and electronica poles, but Weather Alive, her first album in six years, is the former BRIT winner’s most assured and coherent since 1999’s Central Reservation. It’s hasn’t been achieved without suffering, though. This is a record burdened with a weight of sadness, in which the 51-year-old singer-songwriter channels her experience of grief, illness and a rootless sense of dislocation and disappointment into a self-produced collection of songs so bruised and vulnerable that, when she sings “I’m too exposed, honey I’m rubbed…

BMG ★★★★ In among all the many strange events the world has conjured up lately, the idea that one of the year’s most diverse and exciting pop releases would be a Mark Owen solo record is right up there for implausibility. Yet, nine years after the public last told him to clear off from his Take That vacations, Owen unveils a startlingly excellent and life-affirming collection. From his previous four solo albums, you might expect Take That’s most straightforwardly affable member to create the lovable acoustic moods of You Only Want Me and Gone Gone Gone. Less predictable, however, are the Metronomyflavoured funk that drives Come Back, Boy’s Flaming Lips psychedelia or the Chorus-era Erasure anthemics lifting the album’s closing track, World. Where Owen really shocks is Magic, a towering…

BMG ★★★★ Suede’s best album since 1996’s Coming Up, they suddenly recapture an anger not perfected since their earliest days. Richard Oakes’ guitars have never been more untamed, Brett Anderson is as imperiously annoyed with life as he was in the So Young era and Simon Gilbert remains a bizarrely overlooked powerhouse drummer. Drive Myself Home is a classic trademark ballad, but it’s the variety of savage punk, pop and New Wave vitriol which impresses most: sinister post-punk march Black Ice is like nothing else from Suede, while also wildly addictive. Magnificent. JE…

BMG ★★ A 20-song double album, the Right Here Waiting and Hazard singer’s 13th LP is divided into pop, rock, country and ballad segments. Yet, rather than show the variety of Marx’s craft, there’s an abundance of slightly staid mid-paced would-be anthems. He wrote for NSYNC, and much of Songwriter seems designed to be covered as a boyband’s earnest ballad. Even relatively pacy workouts like Shame On You are undercut by his bombastic delivery. It’s certainly slick and polished, but there’s also a sense that he’s keeping inner passions at arm’s length. JE…

BELLA UNION ★★★ A national treasure for uniting music lovers with his Twitter Listening Parties during lockdown, The Charlatans singer somehow also found time to record this 22-song double album. Burgess insists he’s avoided indulgence because he’s “coloured everything in equally.” True, yet potentially glorious pop symphonies are relatively undercooked. Meanwhile, the psychedelic third of this would suit lovers of Frank Zappa and Super Furries at their wonkiest, but those experiments get in the way for pop adherents. Great ideas, not necessarily handled at their best. JE…

CHERRY RED ★★★ Featuring a new Terry Bickersless line-up instigated for a 30th anniversary US tour postponed by the pandemic, The House Of Love founder Guy Chadwick has used the time between lockdowns to nail down a solid set of songs for their seventh album. Opener Sweet Loser has a nicely somnambulant wooziness to it, while there’s a hard rocking thump to the heavy riffing Melody Rose and Clouds. HoL’s trademark dreaminess returns, though, for Into The Laughter and the chiming jangle pop Queen Of Song and In My Mind. Graceful indeed. Steve Harnell…

UMC/FICTION ★★★★ Although it’s got Friday I’m In Love on it, 1992’s Wish wouldn’t be many fans’ guess as The Cure’s best-selling album. Next to a cult classic like Disintegration or Pornography, the band’s ninth LP has felt slightly neglected. It hasn’t helped that it’s been rather hard to find recently. Most Cure albums are freely available on vinyl, but Wish hadn’t been re-pressed, waiting for Robert Smith to fix the mastering that he was too busy preparing for a tour to oversee during its original finishing stages. Helped by mastering king Miles Showell, Wish now sounds more gorgeously shimmering than ever, and a fresh vinyl of the remastered album follows this 3CD set in November. As for the expanded CD/digital Wish? It’s a curious beast: both its six B-sides…

LONDON ★★★★ Continuing the exemplary chronicling of Jimmy Somerville and Richard Coles’ unlikely partnership, The Communards’ second and final album is as thorough as their self-titled reissue from 2021. The B-sides of Red reveal an alternative world where they were cabaret stars: nearly all their flipsides have an air of Gershwin and Porter, either via covers or their own originals, especially the coquettish I Just Want To Let You Know. As its name implies, even pre-house banger Scat is buried in Somerville’s best improv vocals under the Eiffel 65-style riffs. Most of those B-sides and a trio of the of-their-time remixes are on the pleasingly substantial 2LP vinyl set. Demos and rough mixes additionally complement the 2CD package’s extras. And the parent album itself? Well, Somerville and Coles have said…

CHERRY RED ★★★★ Absurdly kept from the top spot by Starsound’s Stars On 45, Toyah’s third album marked her transformation from cult punk to chart revolutionary. With co-writer/guitarist Joel Bogen the only survivor from the band’s previous incarnation, the new line-up did a brilliant job of maintaining the ferocity of old while ditching the more outré excesses for facing radio playlists head on. You’ll know It’s A Mystery and I Want To Be Free, with the pointed Marionette and Pop Star similarly unstoppable bursts of fire. As ever, archivist Craig Astley is exemplary in unearthing extras. The regular Anthem is back on vinyl, there’s a 2CD+DVD set or the boxset is a mighty 3CD, DVD, 2LP and a 7" of the Flexipop single Sphinx on proper vinyl. The box’s second…

MUSIC ON VINYL ★★★ A choreographer for Janet Jackson and Duran Duran, Paula Abdul was hiding in plain sight as a star. Although it took over a year to top the US chart, Abdul’s 1988 debut album provided four US No.1 singles. If Oliver Leiber’s production has dated, L.A. & Babyface’s Knocked Out remains a powerhouse and Glen Ballard’s State Of Attraction highlighted how honed Abdul was once allowed near the studio, helped by her impressive vocals. Back on vinyl, it’s a debut that often favoured polish over songcraft, but remains rather charming. JE…

BMG ★★★ Marking 40 years since calypso classic Hot Hot Hot, Montserrat’s Arrow had been recording for more than a decade before that breakthrough. This 18-song CD/10-track LP shows Arrow, who died in 2010, was no one-hit wonder, with O’ La Soca helping him to popularise soca. There’s no sane reason why Throw It Up isn’t as ubiquitous at parties as his smash, nor why Long Time can’t get everyone dancing. If Hot Hot Hot had been his only single, he’d deserve acclaim, but this shows Arrow constantly hit the target. JE…

EDSEL ★★★ With 2021’s first volume compiling their commercial years, volume two is a tougher sell. Yet, artistically, 2006’s self-titled album is as good as The Bluetones got: My Neighbour’s House is one of the era’s great lost singles, while 2003’s Luxembourg has a bounce to rival their heyday. True, 2010’s A New Athens is oddly formless, a lacklustre current finale from a band 12 years without new music. As before, volume two rounds up B-sides and rarities, adding two unreleased songs. All three are also out on vinyl. JE…

MOTORBOOKS ★★★★ In the six years since David Bowie’s passing, it seems like barely a month passes without the publication of yet another new book, each promising to outdo the last. It does rather prompt the question of what else can be written at this point. The demand from Bowie’s devoted fanbase remains constant, though, so the books keep on coming. Bowie would have had his 75th birthday this January so Martin Popoff’s premise here is to tell the star’s story through 75 milestone life and career moments. As well as talking about his albums, notable tracks, films, performances and collaborations, Bowie @ 75 also includes key dates from the singer’s personal life. As Popoff treads well-worn ground here and the format doesn’t particularly lend itself to going into detail…

Tom Bailey is set to dip into his back catalogue to play Thompson Twins’ classic 1984 album Into The Gap in its entirety for the first time during an exclusive one-off appearance in Buckinghamshire. Bailey will revisit the LP that featured the Top 5 hit singles Doctor! Doctor!, You Take Me Up and Hold Me Now for the gig at Aylesbury’s Waterside Theatre on 3 September for a set that will also include further Thompson Twins favourites and selections from Bailey’s 2018 solo LP, Science Fiction. Tickets are priced between £29 and £40 and available via ATG Tickets, See Tickets and Ticketmaster or by phoning 0844 871 7607. Support for the show comes from Blancmange.…

As Classic Pop went to press, news broke that much-loved Grease star Dame Olivia Newton-John had died at the age of 73. The singer’s husband, John Easterling, said she “passed away peacefully at her ranch in southern California this morning [8 August], surrounded by family and friends”. Born in Cambridge in 1948, Newton-John moved with her family to Australia in 1954. Her Welsh father, Brinley Newton-John, had been a British spy during World War 2, while her mother, Irene Helene, was the daughter of the German Nobel laureate, Max Born. Newton-John released her first album in 1971, If Not For You. Its title track, a cover of a Bob Dylan song, reached No.7 in the UK. It was in 1978, at the age of 29, that she won the role…

Tributes have been paid to Happy Mondays’ bassist Paul Ryder who has died suddenly at the age of 58. Ryder was expected to play a show at Sunderland’s Kubix Festival on 15 July but passed away just hours before the Mondays were due on stage. A message on the band’s social media read: “The Ryder family and Happy Mondays band members are deeply saddened and shocked to say that Paul Ryder passed away this morning. A true pioneer and legend. He will be forever missed. We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time. Long live his funk.” Alongside his brother Shaun, Paul was a founder member of the legendary Mancunian outfit which formed in 1980. Paul played on all of the Happy Mondays’ studio albums…

As Cure fans hold their breath for the band’s long-awaited new studio album – and possibly two LP’s worth of material – they’ll get the chance to revisit a 30th anniversary deluxe edition of Wish. The band’s best-selling 1992 LP, Wish reached No.1 in the UK and No.2 in the US, where it was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Alternative Music Album category. Hitting record stores on 7 October via UMC/Fiction/Polydor, the deluxe 3CD 45-track edition features 24 previously unreleased tracks and four songs that are new to CD and digital. CD1 contains the original Wish album newly remastered by Robert Smith and Miles Showell at Abbey Road studios. The second disc features 21 previously unreleased demos, including four studio vocal demos from 1990 as well as 17…

NENEH CHERRY WITH PAUL BURNS This was taken at a recent signing event at Rough Trade East in London on 17 June for Neneh’s new album, The Versions. Neneh took time chatting to everyone in the queue in her British-American accent – and I was very excited getting a signed copy of Raw Like Sushi. NICK RHODES WITH MATTHEW NORTH Here I am in 2014 when I met Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes at The Cure’s aftershow party at Hammersmith Apollo. As we chatted, I commented it was about time Duran played a show in the South West as the last one was in 1998. I suggested a summer gig at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Nick’s words to me that night were, “If this happens then it will be because…

When Classic Pop last spoke to Ricky Ross, in early 2020, it was shaping up to be Deacon Blue’s biggest year in two decades. There was a much-anticipated new album, City Of Love, championed by Radio Two and supported by the most extensive UK tour the band had ever undertaken. After which they planned to head off to Europe, then Australia, with a handful of summer festival dates along the way. But fate, as we know, had other ideas – which is why, when CP catches up with Ross more than two years on, Deacon Blue are still in the middle of that much-delayed ‘2020’ tour. “Yeah, we’re still not finished,” he says. “It’s been very fraught – every day, you knew it could all just stop at any moment.…

MUTE ★★★★ You can’t accuse Erasure of not maximising their output. In addition to their seven singles boxsets, seven live albums, six Best Of compilations and five fanclubonly rarities sets, last year’s The Neon Remixed joined 1987’s The Two Ring Circus in Erasure’s boutique reworkings department. Overlooked in all that curating hoopla, 2018’s “What on earth is this?” detonation of World Be Gone as World Beyond, made with Belgian classical ensemble Echo Collective, proved just how far Vince Clarke and Andy Bell are willing to use their core albums as a template for mischief, rather than as a definitive artistic statement. However, World Beyond is perfectly staid in comparison with what’s being marketed as Erasure’s 19th new studio album. Although The Neon is officially the source material for Day-Glo (Based…

RHINO SEPT/OCT 2022 CLASSIC BEST NEW RELEASE ★★★★ You wouldn’t wish the drug-induced breakdown that William Orbit endured on your worst enemy. It meant he was mostly unable to work in the eight years since a pair of albums from 2014, Orbit Symphonic and Strange Cargo 5. That the Madonna/Blur/All Saints producer released two albums in the same year was typical of his workload once Bassomatic’s Fascinating Rhythm finally propelled him into the limelight in 1990 after a decade of toil. By then, the previously inspiring Orbit had just begun to seem a little formulaic. Orbit is keen to emphasise he carried on at least trying to make music while he was away. Whatever the genesis of his comeback album, The Painter is the sound of a man revitalised, falling…

COOKING VINYL ★★★★ What do you do when you reach 60 and everything seems a bit, um, shit? Well, if you’re The Proclaimers, you make an album railing against literally everything. Dentures Out is a short, sharp squall punching away at themes of nostalgia, fate, newspaper barons and various strands of a modern life that’s undeniably rubbish. There’s still a fire in the hearts and minds of the Reid twins, now approaching 40 years together as a pop turn, and they’re saying out loud what everyone’s thinking, protesting at the preposterousness and idiocy of a backward-looking nation. Produced, as their previous two have been, by Dave Eringa, album 12 features contributions from Dave’s old mucker James Dean Bradfield from Manic Street Preachers, who adds guitar to the title track and…

BMG ★★★★ Ian Broudie recently argued that 2009’s confidence-knocking Four Winds didn’t feel much like a Lightning Seeds album. That’s not a claim likely to be levelled at its belated follow-up. Indeed, much of this seventh studio effort plays like an alternative greatest hits. Lead single Sunshine, a strong contender for Liverpool’s most joyous ode to the big ball in the sky since The Beatles’ Good Day Sunshine, shares a similarly heraldic quality with The Life of Riley. Broudie has acknowledged that the familiar-sounding brass melody on Green Eyes is a postscript to Pure, while Emily Smiles – penned with Terry Hall – mirrors the perky indie-pop of their previous team-up, Lucky You. The latter even opens with an emphatic chant which could easily be incorporated into Three Lions’ inevitable…

LOCOMOTION/GEFFEN ★★★ Those who moan modern pop is bereft of personalities have clearly overlooked Doncaster’s Dominic Harrison, aka eyelinered emo-pop scamp Yungblud. He wears his influences on his sleeve: his vocals are generally a poutier variant on Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day’s bratty snarl while, on lead single The Funeral, he’s channelling Billy Idol’s propulsive stadium punk. Crucially, this third album has plenty of decent tunes and air-punching anthems such as Cruel Kids, and the Curesampling Tissues should keep him in Rimmel and hair gel for the foreseeable future. Will Simpson…

BELLA UNION ★★★★ Best known for soundtracking smash Channel 4 sitcom Sex Education, Furman completes a trilogy with an album in stark contrast to its punky predecessor, Twelve Nudes. After the Johnny Cash-rocking country mood of opener Train Comes Through, Furman furthers her pop side. Previously best explored in 2015’s breakthrough, Perpetual Motion People, Furman is even more sophisticated here. There are echoes of Synchronicity-era Police in the sleek I Saw The Truth Undressing and a 50s girl group drama to Forever In Sunset and Lilac And Black. A fiery ride. JE…

COOKING VINYL ★★★★ A decade after a Scottish contemporary, The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan, released his only solo album, Mid Air, with songs reduced to piano and voice arrangements, Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross adopts a similar approach with equally tender results. Indeed, they share values lyrically – Spanish Shoes’ journey “over the gates/ Of locked up gardens and wild flower paths/ Of nests atop of chimney stacks” belongs on Hats – and the quiet gospel choir, too, on The Foundations recalls Peace At Last’s redemptive joy. These, obviously, are compliments, because this often-uplifting intimacy can sometimes wind up bland, whereas Ross, like Buchanan, is endlessly compassionate, sharing place names like a familiar friend on Still Walking or recollections of his parents on All Dressed Up: “Me and my dad and a…

SEPT/OCT 2022 CLASSIC BEST REISSUE UMC/VIRGIN EMI ★★★★★ Although Parallel Lines often features in lists of all-time classic albums, there’s a perception around Blondie that, like Madness or Squeeze, they are more of a singles band. Blondie made iconic singles, but all you need is a hits compilation, because they were too dilettante to produce LPs worthy of those 45s. The band aren’t bothered by the notion: Chris Stein told Classic Pop that TikTok has helped show you can cut songs into 30-second chunks and still make great art, so who cares how long your best work is? The guitarist can afford to be magnanimous. He knows Blondie continue to create sublime records, with Pollinator one of this century’s great pop LPs. As for Blondie’s first incarnation? This gargantuan 18lb…

BMG ★★★★/ ★★★★ / ★★★★ / ★★ / ★★★ Last year’s magnificent Future Past album was rightly heralded as classic Duran Duran. There was another reason to celebrate the band’s first new LP in six years: signing to BMG meant their post-EMI catalogue was under the same imprint again. Rio is 40 this year, but Duran are celebrating another anniversary as part of highlighting their criminally neglected era. Originally due its European release in 1997, their ninth album Medazzaland will finally be officially available physically in the UK in October for its 25th birthday. Now expanded with some of the bewildering array of remixes that accompanied its singles by the likes of Todd Terry and Paul Oakenfold, Medazzaland is a fabulous adventure from a band officially out of…

NEUE MEISTER/EDEL ★★★★ We can see your eyes rolling already. A 23-track compilation of Alphaville’s greatest hits reworked with a full orchestra? Surely life’s too short, and anyway didn’t they only have one hit? Well, suspend your cynicism. Outside the UK, Marian Gold’s synth-poppers were consistent hitmakers throughout the mid-80s. In their German homeland, Alphaville are as revered as our own Human League. Moreover, it turns out that Alphaville’s oeuvre is ideally suited to orchestration. If you know these songs already, well, the likes of Sounds Like A Melody and Forever Young are now even more dramatic and anguished than before. Gold’s supremely poised counter tenor glides over these songs like a swan landing on water. Deeply romantic, earnest and beautifully arranged – by Gold’s co-conspirators on the project, Max…

MATT ENTERTAINMENT ★★★ When Matt Bianco were at their peak in the mid-80s, they consisted of singer Mark Reilly, keyboardist Danny White, bassist Kito Poncioni and backing vocalist Basia Trzetrzelewska. As of 2022, only Reilly remains, so this 2CD Best Of promising remixes and re-recordings of 30 songs from their catalogue brings more to mind Marti Pellow’s mind-blowingly redundant 2002 covers LP, Marti Pellow Sings The Hits Of Wet Wet Wet & Smile. With the reimagined versions, more often than not it’s those 80s production flourishes that have been scrubbed out. More Than I Can Bear jettisons the synths to instead receive a cocktail-jazz makeover, though Yeh Yeh is thankfully more faithful to their No.13-charting version of the Latin standard. Reilly has wisely resisted tinkering with Bianco’s most famous number,…

UMC/ISLAND ★★★★ Belatedly out on vinyl for the first time, Paul Weller’s 2008 double album kickstarted the second phase of his solo career. Weller hasn’t looked back since this magical landscape showed that he could throw together his most strutting rock, contemplative ballads, heartfelt folk and experimental krautrock on the same record and still make it all hang together perfectly. After the route-one assault of 2005’s As Is Now got The Modfather back on the attack, these 21 adventurous songs have been the benchmark for a freeflowing career that has rarely faltered since. JE…

BMG ★★ Six years on from the correctly titled Wonderful, by 2005, Madness’ second incarnation needed a new album. Having played secret gigs of covers as The Dangermen, they recorded their favourite reinterpretations. For a band who first succeeded by reworking Prince Buster, it’s disappointingly thin. Lacking the usual wit and energy, they play it too straight and earnest. Despite Dennis Bovell co-producing, the rocksteady feel is one-paced, becoming a slog by a reggaefied Lola. Finally on vinyl, no wonder there’s yet to be a volume two. JE…

16 JULY ★★★★ It’s noon on the eve of what’s predicted to be the hottest couple of days in the UK ever – there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the queues for the water taps are already building up. But The Farm’s Peter Hooton is nonplussed. “I don’t know why people are saying there’s a heatwave, it’s cold enough for a coat,” cries the over-dressed singer from the Let’s Rock stage. Hooton’s clearly made of stronger stuff than the encamped capacity crowd, who are down to little more than Frankie Says... T-shirts plus a liberal plastering of Factor 50. Although halfway through their set – which includes solid renditions of Groovy Train, a Mick Jones-approved cover of The Clash’s Bank Robber and All Together Now (dedicated to Happy…

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Duran Duran have played a headline performance slot at the spectacular opening ceremony in their home city of Birmingham for the 22nd Commonwealth Games, the biggest sporting event held in the UK since the London Olympics of 2012. Staged at the rebuilt Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr in front of a 30,000-strong crowd and a worldwide television audience of more than one billion, the band played a four-song set on 28 July comprising Save A Prayer, Planet Earth, Tonight United and Ordinary World. The opening festivities to the Games also included guitarist Tony Iommi and acclaimed saxophonist Soweto Kinch. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony on 8 August featured a second performance by Iommi alongside a surprise appearance by Ozzy Osbourne as the pair reunited to play Black Sabbath’s Paranoid.…

For all of Terry “Snowy” White’s long career as a guitarist with bands as prestigious as Pink Floyd and Thin Lizzy, his name is forever associated with this subtle, ambient rock ballad which briefly made him a pop star at the age of 35. A year after leaving Thin Lizzy, White set to work on his first ever solo long-player, White Flames, and Bird Of Paradise was its lead single. Bluesy and atmospheric, with a gentle vocal and poignant lyrics, his considerable solo skills come to the fore before the third verse and extends at its coda. Never needing to ramp up the rage on his voice or try an incongruous key change, White keeps it simple and delivers a pristine song which is accessible and pretty. White Flames, an…

Andrew Ridgeley has joined forces with drummar – aka songwriter and producer Dru Masters – for a contemporary reboot of Wham’s summer classic Club Tropicana. Ridgeley explains that the pair have given the 1983 hit a modern overhaul for their Wonderland Redux remix: “Our primary goal was to retain the character and personality of the song and the record that George and I wrote and recorded. drummar’s take starts with the instantly recognisable cicada sound effects of the original version played over an atmospheric call-and-answer synth melody, which then kicks into overdrive with a high-octane sonic facelift of the verse, building progressively into a pumping sonic torrent in the chorus.” He continues: “It became a track that defined the hedonistic pleasure of sunny Mediterranean island summer holidays and we were guided…

3 The three-day US Festival (pronounced ‘us’, as in the pronoun, not the initials) kicked off on 3 September in San Bernardino, California. Organised and bankrolled by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the event boasted some truly stellar names, with Fleetwood Mac, The Police, Tom Petty, Talking Heads, plus The Kinks, Ramones, The B52’s, The Beat (as The English Beat) and Gang Of Four among those performing. Wozniak spent a year and a reported $12.5 million on the festival, which was hyped at the time as the Woodstock of the 80s. Apple’s role in the festival, however, was never far from people’s minds, as Wozniak had placed a large hot-air balloon, emblazoned with the company’s logo, next to the main stage. Several of the Apple bigwigs of the time attended, though…

From the incorporation of electronic textures into a rock band format that informed the likes of Japan and Duran Duran to the melodicism drawn upon by The Cure, Siouxsie And The Banshees, as well as vast swathes of sophisti-pop bands, Roxy Music were amongst the most influential acts of their era. They lit the touchpaper for all manner of switched-on artists that followed in their wake and it’s that significant contribution which is celebrated on a reissue of their career-spanning The Best Of Roxy Music compilation, released on vinyl for the first time to mark the band’s 50th anniversary. In 2019, Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon and John Taylor famously inducted Roxy Music into the coveted Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; the pair described the band’s appearance on Top…

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ The received critical wisdom about It Bites was that they were too pop to be heavy metal, too heavy to be pop, more interested in musical excellence than hit singles and driven by a reverence for quality progressive rock and jazz-fusion. But in their relatively short recording history (at least with the original line-up of Francis Dunnery on guitar/vocals, keyboardist John Beck, bassist Dick Nolan and Bob Dalton on drums) between 1986 and 1989, they nonetheless managed one huge hit, Calling All The Heroes, several other near-hits and three well-received studio albums. Emerging from Cumbria in the early 80s, after an initiation period as a…

WHAT IS IT? Unusually, the term ‘yacht rock’ was only coined well after the genre’s 70s and early-80s heyday. At the time when this FM-friendly stew of super-varnished production, breezy vocals and sumptuous, swooping melodies was peaking in the charts, it was mostly talked about as AOR (Adult Oriented Rock) or soft rock, but there was always something so much more distinct about the genre that it needed its own moniker. It was, as presenter Katie Puckrik memorably described in her 2019 BBC documentary, The Smooth World Of Yacht Rock, “millionaires’ make-out music”, where polished pop met polished rock, a soothing sonic balm for a United States on fire. The term itself was only minted in 2005 by aficionados JD Ryznar, David Lyons and Hunter D Stair for their web…

VIRGIN EMI ★★★★ Described by Paul Heaton as “K-Pop from the wrong side of the border,” his fifth album with Jacqui Abbott is the duo’s first since Manchester Calling returned them to No.1 after a 22-year gap. Paul has also won his long-overdue first award in the interim, for Outstanding Song Collection at The Ivors. Back at his commercial peak, with the industry finally catching up with the public in recognising him as a superb melodicist, Heaton and his ideal vocal foil would have been forgiven for bathing in the acclaim. The warm side of their duets means N.K-Pop would have amply satisfied if they’d kept it cosy. Sure enough, relationship drama Too Much For One (Not Enough For Two) and drinking lament The Good Times which open the album…

DTOX ★★★★ Howard Jones has always been one of the Second British Invasion’s most glass half-full stars. The title of Things Can Only Get Better is essentially his motto. But can the synth-pop maestro retain such positivity with an album recorded in – and heavily inspired by – the pandemic? You don’t have to wait long to find out. Self-described as the most optimistic song he’s ever written, Dialogue’s opening track is a testament to the power of community and perhaps those days when banging saucepans on a Thursday evening became part of the national routine. Thankfully, Celebrate It Together is a little more tuneful, its mix of stop-start electro-funk, slinky disco guitar licks and vocodered melodies resembling a race through Daft Punk’s greatest hits: there are definite echoes of…

LONDON ★★★★ No-one could ever accuse Blancmange, now essentially a Neil Arthur solo project, of resting on their laurels. Private View is the 15th (yes, 15th!) album from the finest 80s band named after a wobbly dessert since their reformation in 2011. Thankfully, its 10 typically idiosyncratic tracks prove they haven’t succumbed to the law of diminishing returns. In fact, no doubt buoyed by reuniting with guitarist David Rhodes and being back on the London label of their heyday, the follow-up to instrumental double album Nil By Mouth IV/V is a genuine contender for their strongest second-phase release yet. Some Times These is a pandemic anthem that sits somewhere between Berlin-era Bowie and Foo Fighters’ similarlynamed modern classic, while I Tried To Be You and Reduced Voltage both channel the…

XL ★★★★ Halfway through planning his debut solo album, The xx singer Oliver Sim noticed that he was writing a lot about shame. Slowly, Sim realised he wanted to declare he’s been living with HIV since he was 17. His health no longer secret, he’s been freed instead to celebrate his life. Fruit is wonderful gliding funk, the deep and sonorous voice familiar from The xx’s dubstep dramas more teasing here as Sim edges towards the dancefloor. Fruit features the unmistakable backing vocals of Jimmy Somerville, whose other contribution to semi-title track Hideous is even stronger. Sim is defiant, Somerville beautiful in a cameo as the voice of a guardian angel. The album peaks with Sensitive Child, a tribal chant where Sim’s mothership bandmate Jamie xx’s production is as inventive…

LOJINX ★★★★ Phil Thornalley shaped the 80s pop-rock landscape, working with Duran Duran, The Cure and Thompson Twins. On his new solo effort, the Torn co-writer and multi-instrumentalist dabbles in that decade’s more rustic sounds: check the Traveling Wilburysvibing Hell Bent On Compromise. However, Thornalley’s fifth album is more a loving homage to the rock‘n’roll of the 70s. Fast Car channels ELO’s orchestral palette, while Heaven In A Hash Pipe exudes a Bolanesque swagger. Proof that a good melody never goes out of style. Annie Zaleski…

SECRETLY CANADIAN ★★★★ After nine years, the YYYs return with the follow-up to 2013’s Mosquito. And, readers, it’s ruddy marvellous. The Perfume Genius-featuring Spitting Off The Edge Of The World triumphantly opens proceedings with a wall of hazy, strafing guitar. There are more road-trip shoegaze tones on Lovebomb, plus spiky funk on Fleez, urgent warped soul on Burning, a bent-out-of-shape The Weeknd on the anthemic Different Today and spooksome spoken word on closer Mars. The trio’s effortless elegance makes Cool It Down a triumph, well worth the near-decade wait. IW…

BMG ★★★ When Julian Lennon re-emerged with a cover of Imagine in April this year, critics were quick to suggest this was the 59-year-old finally reconciling himself with his father’s legacy. Truth is, though, that John’s first-born has rarely run away from dad’s shadow. 1991’s Saltwater had a distinct Sgt Pepper vibe, complete with actual George Harrison guitar, while the video for 1998’s I Don’t Wanna Know was a comic gallop through the Fabs’ history. Given that Imagine cover and this album’s Hey Jude-referencing title, you might be thinking this will be Julian’s Flaming Pie; the record to see him fully commit to those Beatles sounds. Except there’s probably more of Tears For Fears’ Orzabal and Smith than Lennon and McCartney on this, Julian’s seventh studio album and first in…

CHRYSALIS ★★★★ After 2020’s deluxe reissue of Vienna, Ultravox do a similarly thorough job with its follow-up. Released 14 months later, Rage In Eden wasn’t a disaster, but didn’t quite match Vienna’s success, charting one place lower at No.4 and only spawning two singles. The proto-rap of The Thin Wall and The Voice’s sturdy driving rock deserved better than to linger just outside the Top 10, but this was 1981, when chart space was at a premium for great singles. Co-produced with Conny Plank once again, Ultravox’s fifth album is probably their most straight-up commercial record. Not that Rage In Eden is compromised: far from it. However, chart stardom and knowing that Midge Ure was accepted by fans instilled a new confidence. There’s a certainty to Ure’s delivery and Warren…

NOW ★★★★ / ★★★★★ / ★★★★ / ★★★★★ The NOW brand continues doing righteous work with a host of fantastic selections guaranteed to woo yore-pop lovers. The latest batch is fizzing with temptations. First up, NOW Presents Electronic is a 5LP boxset rounding up 68 crackers featuring the obvious (Blue Monday, Torch, Vienna, Quiet Life) alongside showcasing material that doesn’t usually get much of a look in (Laurie Anderson’s O Superman, Duran’s The Chauffeur, Human League’s Hard Times, Donna Summer’s Working The Midnight Shift). It has the vibe of a chum-compiled mixtape veering around the eras. The unstoppable NOW Yearbook series moves back a year to 1979. It’s 12 months when singlesbuying was at its height, and it’s not hard to see why with this 85-track 4CD (or…

CHERRY POP ★★★★ Sheena Easton was to the 80s what Linda Ronstadt was to the 70s: a peerless vocal interpreter who found commercial success shapeshifting between pop, rock and country. Live At The Palace, Hollywood, the latest release in a reissue campaign of Easton’s EMI work, was recorded in 1982 during the Scottish vocalist’s first American tour. Housed together here, the live CD and accompanying DVD (which originally aired as an HBO special) are a showcase for Easton’s spunky stage presence and soft-rock smashes. Hits like the disco-kissed Modern Girl and majestic Bond-theme ballad For Your Eyes Only retain their dramatic power. Easton sounds even more invested on a haunted, intimate version of In The Winter and a pair of covers that allow her to let loose: a twangy, barnstorming…

VIRGIN/UMC ★★★★ For a band that were resolutely forward-thinking for much of their career, there’s no little irony in the fact the tracklisting of this 18-song retrospective is arranged in reverse chronological order. It’s an interesting conceit that sees Roxy morph from the slick 80s AOR of Avalon’s swoonsome title track all the way back to the strident art-rock of Re-Make/ Re-Model. Immaculately produced, there’s a quiet confidence to the understated elegance of More Than This and emotive John Lennon cover, Jealous Guy. Their influence on early Duran is most obvious on the propulsive groove of Same Old Scene, while Oh Yeah builds beautifully to a lilting chorus. At their midpoint, Roxy still had half an eye on the dancefloor, with Angel Eyes and the sultry Love Is The Drug…

UMC/VIRGIN EMI ★★★★ Arriving nearly three years after the Beastie Boys’ critically lovebombed Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head would prove as different to their second LP as that one was to debut, Licensed To Ill. Less sample reliant, it ping-pongs between Lalo Schifrin-style hip-hop (Funky Boss), Blaxploitation instrumentals (Pow) and Black Flag punk (Time For Livin’), and includes one of their best singles in Jimi Hendrix love letter Jimmy James. This 30th anniversary vinyl boxset includes two extra LPs comprising remixes, live versions and B-sides. SO…

NEEDLE MYTHOLOGY ★★★★ Eschewing their usual Crowded House/Split Enz polish, Neil and Tim Finn’s 1995 debut highlights their melodic prowess. The lyrics are less personal than usual, which doesn’t prevent Last Day Of June being one of the most haunting songs either has written, nor Kiss The Road Of Rarotonga rocking hard. The Finns’ writing has always delighted, and it’s in its purest form here. A first vinyl release, Finn is housed with a 1990 demo LP of future Crowded House material. A similar job on their other album Everyone Is Here would be welcome. JE…