Tabla de contenidos para January 2026 en Classic Pop

COMING ON STRONG BROKEN ENGLISH Though not quite a tribute band, Broken English got their brief but brilliant moment in the spotlight thanks to singer Steve Elson’s vocal similarity to Mick Jagger. Elson was already on the cabaret circuit as a mimic of the Rolling Stones singer but when he wrote Coming On Strong, he was encouraged to put a real band together as it was deemed too good for an impressionist. An edgy mid-tempo rock jam that exhibits Elson’s tremendous Jagger-esque howls and sneers, it caught the attention of radio stations in the summer of 1987 when it arrived as a white label, allowing DJs to speculate that it was a new Stones recording – they had fallen out – or the first release from Jagger’s second solo album,…

GIVE THE GIFT OF INSPIRATION! SAVE 45% on any subscription Or get single issues for £6 OR UNDER NO HIDDEN FEES – all postage & packaging included Issues DELIVERED DIRECT to the recipient’s door TAKE THE HASSLE OUT of your Christmas shopping! TERMS AND CONDITIONS Subscriptions are available for Classic Pop, Colouring Heaven, Italia!, Vegan Food & Living, Vintage Rock, and Women’s Running. Subscription savings are calculated from the local cover price, and you can select your start issue so that the gift is a surprise. Single issue discounts are available on all single magazine issues, excluding the issue currently on sale, any digital products, bundles or merchandise. OFFER CODE: XCAR25. Offer ends: 31st January 2026. SCAN THIS QR CODE ON YOUR PHONE CAMERA TO ACCESS THESE SPECIAL OFFERS! YOURONE-STOP…

PRIMITIVE LOVE MIAMI SOUND MACHINE It seemed to take forever and a day to get Miami Sound Machine and their exceptional frontwoman on to the world stage – and it was their ninth album Primitive Love that finally achieved it. While dispensing almost entirely with the Spanish language, Gloria Estefan and her long-time backers mixed contemporary pop rhythms with Latin beats and, along with their singer’s vivid, stirring vocals, the sound became both irresistible and incredibly powerful. Conga, as joyful and manic a song about celebratory human chains as anyone could write, broke them in the States while Bad Boy, possessing the album’s best chorus, was the UK hit. The infectiousness is enhanced further by a superb title track, the more ambient, twisting qualities of Movies, rousing opener Body To…

What’s the first song you remember loving? I was about seven years old and I’d seen The Muppet Movie and the song Rainbow Connection spoke to all my feelings as a little boy. I’d sit in my room and just play it over and over again. I was raised in a very religious household, where you’d go to church and listen to hymns, but then there was rock’n’roll – the forbidden – which I was so drawn to. I loved the imagery of bands like Iron Maiden, and The Muppets were a perfect introduction for me as a kid because they had big monsters. And what about the first album you truly loved? Depeche Mode’s Violator – there was something about the song Waiting For The Night, which I remember lying…

POP PICKERS JOHN EARLS, STEVE HARNELL, PAUL KIRKLEY, JON O’BRIEN, BETH SIMPSON, IAN WADE, WYNDHAM WALLACE AND ANNIE ZALESKI CELEBRITY SELECTIONS BETTY BOO, MARTIN FRY, TONY HADLEY, NICK HEYWARD, SPARKS, JOHN TAYLOR AND MARTYN WAREN No two people’s definition of pop will be exactly the same, but there’s a shared ethos throughout these 100 albums which our team believe highlights what our magazine intends to celebrate in every issue. Each album we’ve selected has infectious earworms, drama, glamour, instant thrills, long lasting emotion and a need to connect with as many people as possible without compromising on its makers’ vision. To add to the mix, we also have an array of Classic Pop icons giving their own personal Top 5 album selections. As there are so many incredible talents to…

01 DAVID BOWIE ALADDIN SANE (1973) A close call between this and Ziggy Stardust, but Aladdin Sane just has the edge. It’s quirky and the songs are just amazing. The icing on the cake for me is Mike Garson’s phenomenal piano playing. 02 FRANK SINATRA SONGS FOR SWINGING LOVERS (1956) I’m a huge Sinatra fan. I had the great pleasure of meeting him when I was 17, I’ve read every book about the man, and his voice was so original: he had the ability to really convey lyrics. Whether a ballad or up-tempo swing song, he was simply sublime! This is a classic pop album of its time with incredible orchestrations. 03 ELTON JOHN GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD (1973) My very first double album, I’d saved up enough pocket money…

01 THE BEACH BOYS LITTLE DEUCE COUPE (1963) 02 THE WHO THE WHO SELL OUT (1967) 03 SEX PISTOLS NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS (1977) 04 PUBLIC ENEMY FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET (1990) 05 ELVIS PRESLEY ELVIS PRESLEY (1956) Limiting our choices to only five albums must be qualified by saying that these are our “Top five albums” when asked today. The list might change tomorrow and the day after. And there are gazillions of other albums that get shortchanged. End of sermon. The Beach Boys harmoniously sing about what was important to any sane young person growing up in LA in the 60s: cool beaches, cool cars, cool school spirit and cool girls. Interspersing British advertising jingles amongst the more quaint and charming lyrics of The Who Sell Out, The Who made…

At the dawn of the new millennium, Matt Johnson was in a dark place. Over the previous two decades, the creative engine and sole permanent member of The The had built a devoted following for his intense, occasionally apocalyptic stripe of cerebral pop, which critics had dubbed ‘existential blues’. But delayed grief from the sudden death of his younger brother Eugene, followed by years of growing frustration with music business politics, had seen him gradually crawl to a stop. “I put all my instruments in storage, and literally didn’t pick up a guitar for seven years,” he says. “I got so far out of the habit of making music, I forgot how to do it.” But while new songs would take another decade-and-change to emerge, musical salvation was at hand…

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL AN ERA This 3-LP vinyl set from NOW Music celebrates 40 iconic albums that were released between 1980 and 1984, featuring a magnificent track from each. Housed in a tri-fold sleeve that features a track-by-track guide, and with each disc pressed in a different eye-popping colour, this stunning set brings you a sampler of the iconic albums that represent an incredible period of creativity and originality. WHY SUBSCRIBE TO CLASSIC POP? • Classic Pop magazine delivered to your home and device every month for half the price! • FREE NOW That’s What I Call An Era 3-LP vinyl set worth £33.99. • Exclusive access to our digital magazine archive, subscriber-only covers, discounts and more. SCAN FOR MORE INFO SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO RECEIVE YOUR FREE VINYL SET! JUST…

01 HANGIN’ TOUGH NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK (CBS) In many ways, New Kids were the catalyst for the 90s boyband Big Bang. Originally released in 1989, Hangin’ Tough initially peaked at No.52 with little fanfare and seemingly passed pop-pickers by. However, after You Got It (The Right Stuff) topped the chart in November 1989, the group became a phenomenon, setting the mould for every fresh-faced Y-chromosomed dance outfit to follow. Spun from the band’s second album, the track was an attempt to create a sports anthem. “We literally set out to do a song that could be a theme song for the Celtics,” lead singer Donnie Wahlberg recalled in the book New Kids On The Block: Five Brothers And A Million Sisters. “That was the idea: blatantly trying to…

Q When did you firstbecome a Superfan of Erasure and why do you like them? A It was back in 1986 when my stepmum bought me a vinyl copy of Wonderland for my 21st birthday. That’s when my collection started. I’ve enjoyed Vince Clarke’s music since the beginning, listening to him back when he was in Depeche Mode, Yazoo and The Assembly. I have always liked synth-based music and Erasure was a continuation of that. Q What do you have in your collection? A It includes more than 4,000 items from all over the world. I have over 100 different copies of some albums on CD, vinyl, cassette, MiniDisc, VHS and DVD. I have lots of rare items and my favourites are the promotional boxsets of the albums – there…

Chilfest weekend returns to the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire next July with a line-up that includes Tony Hadley, The Christians, Toploader and more. Topping the bill on 4 July is Level 42 (pictured right), featuring Mark King and Mike Lindup. The band have recently been celebrating the 40th anniversary of their international breakthrough LP World Machine on tour, delivering hits like Something About You and Leaving Me Now alongside classics The Sun Goes Down (Living It Up), Lessons In Love and Running In The Family. They’re joined on the bill at Chilfest by Kid Creole And The Coconuts, who will bring the summertime calypso. Started in 2014 by festival director Steve Butcher, 2025’s event featured Adam Ant, Peter Hook & The Light and Kim Wilde. Butcher said: “This year’s festival was…

The Kooks, Super Furry Animals, The Streets and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark will headline Bristol Sounds at the Canons Marsh Amphitheatre next June. OMD played at the Bristol Beacon on their Bauhaus Staircase Tour in 2024 – a venue that they first visited back in September 1979. Now Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys will return to the city on 26 June 2026 promising a celebration of more than four decades as innovators of electronic music. They join The Kooks, who’ll be marking 20 years of their debut album, Inside In/Inside Out, with a show at the Bristol Harbourside event on 23 June. Featuring hits like Naïve, She Moves In Her Own Way and You Don’t Love Me, the record sold more than two million copies and catapulted the Brighton…

I was 16 when I first heard XTC’s White Music. It was everything I wanted pop to be: electric, twisted, fast, angular, colourful, surreal, unexpected art-pop. The same goes for Talking Heads’ 77. The mixture of David Byrne’s lyrics and delivery with Tina Weymouth’s basslines and the band’s arrangements thrilled me and gave me hope. Revolver is probably the greatest pop album ever made: The Beatles in their prime. I fell in love with it in 1982, bang in the middle of Haircut One Hundred’s prime, and it changed everything. Bohemian Rhapsody and You’re My Best Friend are two of the greatest pieces of pop music ever written. I never played the rest of A Night At The Opera by Queen: I didn’t need to. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton…

01 THE BEATLES PLEASE PLEASE ME (1963) The record that defined the pop album for a decade. When Paul counts off the opening I Saw Her Standing There’s “1, 2, 3, 4…”, he’s not just counting off a song: he’s counting off a new era, a new world. The boys share their impeccable taste, while showing off their developing songwriting abilities. The title track is one of the most deceptively simple yet complex pop songs ever written. There are also fantastic covers – they obviously had great taste. Baby It’s You and Chains are Brill Building songs crafted in the American pop style, given the Mersey Big Beat treatment, worked out in Hamburg. The Mersey Sound exploded into the ballrooms of Merseyside and the north and then the entire fucking…

Tears For Fears have commemorated 40 years of Songs From The Big Chair with a batch of anniversary editions, including a 3CD deluxe set, a limited-edition vinyl edition and a Blu-Ray with new Atmos, 5.1, stereo and instrumental mixes by Steven Wilson. Interestingly, the album is also being reissued as a double record pressed on transparent red vinyl with the little-known original alternate cover artwork. “We had no intention of having us on the cover,” Orzabal reveals. “Our mandate for Big Chair was, ‘Yeah, we like Joan Miró. Who doesn’t like Joan Miró?’ So they went off and did a splashy painting thing.” For Tears For Fears, a reluctance to market themselves with photographs was “a subconscious thing about wanting to remain anonymous, to a certain degree,” Smith says. “It really…

1 PASSWORD An artefact of the CD era, Password is the obligatory secret track, though atypically hidden before the officially-listed first song, originally only discoverable by skipping backwards. Streaming services now tend to put it at the end of the record. Either way, it’s deserving of a place in its own right. Based around the same Herbie Hancock riff used on Dee-Lite’s Groove Is In The Heart, it’s a sprightly disco romp with a retro-soul flavour that wouldn’t be out of place on Madonna’s Ray Of Light. 2 SPINNING AROUND No mucking about with formalities, it’s straight in with a chorus hook that screams: ‘Kylie is back!’ A rubbery bassline dances over the disco beat, with Balearic house piano, slinky guitars and sugary vocals on top. In truth, Spinning Around…

Although it appeared on streaming services with no warning on 7 November, the release of a Twenty Years Edition of the original Confessions On A Dance Floor shouldn’t have been a total surprise. Not only were eight bonus tracks added to the original 12 songs, this was the first time that the streaming edition of Confessions On A Dance Floor followed the original CD, in having all 12 mixed together in one continuous flow. Unlike the demos which have featured on Madonna’s recent Veronica Electronica and Bedtime Stories releases from the vaults, the digital Confessions reissue doesn’t have anything previously unreleased. However, Super Pop was previously only available to members of Madonna’s Icon fanclub. A list song in the vein of Vogue, its route-one boasting (“If I was a genius, I’d…

NEW ALBUMS SPARKS AND SUEDE KEEP IT SPIKY, BRYAN FERRY RELAXES INTO A NEW ERA AND ANDY BELL SERVES UP A MASTERCLASS IN HOOK-LADEN POP 01 SPARKS MAD! (TRANSGRESSIVE) Sparks may have landed on a new record label in Transgressive, but happily this was Ron and Russell Mael keeping their formula the same: do what you want, just make it approachable and never talk down to the audience. Slightly more political, slightly more frantic, yet assured as only Sparks can be. 02 CMAT EURO-COUNTRY (CMATBABY) With word of mouth from the chewy delights of her live shows and previous two albums at fever pitch, CMAT wasn’t going to waste her shot at going mainstream. She managed to further both her country-pop songwriting and the eccentricities of her more outré side in…

MADONNA BEDTIME STORIES WARNER MADONNA’S MOVE INTO REISSUES IMPROVES FROM ITS SHAKY START – BUT STILL ISN’T COMPREHENSIVE ENOUGH TO SATISFY ANYONE IN EXPLORING HER MOST LOVED-UP ALBUM Having waited over 40 years to allow a glimpse into her vault, a sort-of expanded version of 1994’s Bedtime Stories arrives just four months after Ray Of Light’s messy offcuts collection, Veronica Electronica. Billed as The Untold Chapter of its parent album, the latest eight-track mini-album features Secret’s quirky B-side Let Down Your Guard – think Bedtime Story crossed with Hanky Panky – long-forgotten charity compilation anonymous groove Freedom and just one remix, Howie Tee’s growling edit of Human Nature. That neglects some great remixes by Junior Vasquez, Orbital, Danny Tenaglia and Steve “Silk” Hurley, which would have made for a great…

Ultravox’s The Collection was a must-have for music fans during the mid-80s, and the fact it hung around the UK Albums Chart for a year is testament to that fact. Continuing the group’s series of comprehensive boxsets, the curators at Blue Raincoat Music have stretched beyond the 1984 cut-off point of the original to bring us further singles, including all of the B-sides from the Midge Ure era, as well as a wealth of remixes from the likes of Steven Wilson, Blank & Jones and Ure himself. Moreover, there are a host of added features, unseen photos, a 24-page booklet with the vinyl edition and two Blu-rays with the six-disc version replete with live performances and videos. Midge Ure joined Classic Pop to guide us through this wealth of material,…

Nik Kershaw, Nick Heyward and Johnny Hates Jazz will join headliners Bananarama at 80s Classical in Leeds next summer. Created by composer, arranger and conductor Cliff Masterson with long-time collaborator and Musical Director Steve Anderson, the concert will see the Classic Pop favourites perform alongside the 50-piece Orchestra of Opera North on Saturday 27 June. In addition to the main performances, the backing vocalist trio of Bianca Claxton, Adetoun Anibi and Nick Shirm will also be playing a bonus set of crowd-pleasing material. Tickets, priced £42.50 (standing) and £52.50 (seating), are on sale now at millsqleeds.com. This year’s event saw Kim Wilde, Roland Gift, Go West and Jaki Graham entertain audiences in the specially created outdoor arena in the city’s Millennium Square.…

01 THE BEATLES REVOLVER (1966) 02 DAVID BOWIE THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS (1972) 03 MARVIN GAYE WHAT’S GOING ON (1971) 04 RAYE MY 21ST CENTURY BLUES (2023) 05 TEARS FOR FEARS SONGS FROM THE BIG CHAIR (1985) All a classic pop album has to do is capture the zeitgeist and redefine the playing field by bending the rules with as much originality and innovation as it can muster. Creating new trends instantly, redesigning the era and changing the world before anyone has noticed. A classic pop album is an act of rebellion at the start of a revolution. A couple of good tunes also helps. John, Paul, George and Ringo, David and Marvin, Rachel and Roland and Curt have all done this.…

01 SALT ’N PEPA HOT, COOL & VICIOUS (1986) I first heard My Mic Sounds Nice when I was 15, on LWR pirate radio in West London. I went straight down to a record stall in Shepherd’s Bush Market to buy their album. They were so sassy and their delivery was fun, energetic and feisty. I couldn’t believe there was an all-female rap crew from Queens with a female DJ. I used to write down their lyrics in my bedroom, then pretend to be them in the mirror. I wanted to be them so badly. I loved the way that producer Hurby Luv Bug sampled 60s, R&B, funk and go-go and created magic. Salt ’N Pepa really did hold their own in hip-hop, in what was mostly a boys’ club…

The title of Tears For Fears’ last studio album, 2022’s The Tipping Point, feels incredibly prescient these days. In the years since the record became a global Top 10 hit (including peaking at No.2 in the UK) the Bath-formed duo have enjoyed a surge of creative and commercial success. In 2024, Tears For Fears packaged four new studio songs with their first ever official full live LP, Songs For A Nervous Planet, and launched a Las Vegas residency. Buoyed by the positive reception to these initial dates, the band booked an encore 10-show run in Sin City in 2025. When Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith talk to Classic Pop in late October, it’s the morning after one of these Vegas gigs. The musicians are in fine form, bantering back and forth…

For millions of people across the globe, a mention of the name Kylie Minogue will conjure up a certain vision in the mind’s eye. Whether ardent follower or casual observer, it probably involves the singer shaking away in shimmering gold attire to a sprightly disco groove. That specific vision – encapsulated in the Spinning Around video – epitomises everything fans love about Kylie in three-and-a-half minutes. It went viral before going viral was even a thing, cementing her place as a genuine pop culture icon whose resonance transcends any particular decade. Somehow, its parent album, Light Years, is a quarter of a century old, yet remains as fresh now as the day of its release. Today, Kylie is still one of the world’s most bankable pop stars. While her ascent…

SPINNING AROUND Directed by Dawn Shadforth (who later made Can’t Get You Out Of My Head and 2 Hearts). A hugely popular promo largely due to the creatively cropped shots of Kylie dancing in her gold hotpants. The video was a media sensation. There’s no understating the role this one promo played in rejuvenating Kylie’s career. KIDS Kylie and Robbie Williams unite for a raunchy dance routine, referencing Danny and Sandy’s iconic Grease choreography. Their obvious rapport is authentic and relaxed; the almost uncomfortably voyeuristic close-up shots of Williams’ eyes and Minogue’s lips accentuate the chemistry oozing from every frame. YOUR DISCO NEEDS YOU Living up to the kitsch vibe with a 70s disco-inspired theme, supposedly taking inspiration from the Olivia Newton-John film Xanadu, it features countless duplicated dancing Kylies placed…

It was a cruel midwinter in January 1985 when Fra Lippo Lippi stepped into ABBA’s Polar Studios to record their third album, Songs. Flamboyantly named after Robert Browning’s poem about 15th century painter Filippo Lipp, they’d built a reputation in their homeland as one of Norway’s most underrated bands, and made further inroads beyond. NME had described their 1983 single The Treasure as “beautifully crafted” and Sounds, the same year, praised the band’s “underlying power in their use of recurring melodies”. They’d thus staked a great deal on the following three weeks, not least because, having parted from a label without funds to fulfil their ambitions, these Swedish sessions came at their own expense. Ultimately leading to a contract with Virgin Records in London, their gamble proved advantageous. Eighteen months…

The Great Escape is reissued on 12 December as a 2LP set, adding 11 B-sides, including a version of To The End in French as a duet with Françoise Hardy. “Going to Françoise Hardy’s apartment in Paris was a great day,” smiles Alex James. “It was completely black, with a pinball machine in the corner. I’ll never forget Françoise saying: ‘Who is the one who likes cheese?’ She’d been out to the fromagerie and bought an enormous selection of cheese. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Then Damon cut the nose off the brie. Such bad manners.” Other B-sides of the era, notably A Song and The Horrors, seem to foretell the rawer sound of fifth album Blur. Dave Rowntree cautions: “Our B-sides were always like that. They…

DEPECHE MODE M/MEMENTO MORI: MEXICO CITY SONY MUSIC VISION/COLUMBIA WHILE DEPECHE MODE’S MOST RECENT TOUR MAKES FOR A FINE LIVE ALBUM, THE ACCOMPANYING FILM DOCUMENTING IT IS SOMETHING ELSE ALTOGETHER There are concert films that are just that: films of concerts. Then there are those that burrow deeper, revealing something of the essence of their subjects, maybe even more. M is one of the latter. Captured during Depeche Mode’s three sold-out concerts on the Memento Mori tour at the Foro Sol Stadium by director Fernando Frias, with Mexico City’s 2023 Day Of The Dead celebrations serving as a backdrop, it doesn’t flinch from showing Dave Gahan and Martin Gore as they are now – craggy-faced men in their sixties. Gahan in a waistcoat, grey hair slicked back, looks every inch…

THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS COLUMBIA THEATER, BERLIN 8 NOVEMBER BACK IN BLACK OR PRETTY IN PINK? THE BUTLER BROTHERS’ VETERAN POST-PUNKS HAVE GOT IT ALL COVERED IN BERLIN. For a band who’ve spent the last months playing to thousands in North American venues, it could have felt uneasily sobering to pull up outside Berlin’s Columbia Theater. Just a couple of years short of their 50th anniversary, and on a Saturday night, The Psychedelic Furs find themselves in the German capital playing an 800-capacity club. But if it’s a comedown from, say, LA’s Greek Theatre or Denver’s Fillmore, the moment Richard Butler emerges on stage, delivering a bow so elegantly thespian it verges on the camp, he’s met with an arena-sized reception. Perhaps that’s not so surprising, for if patience is a…