Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2024 i Classic Pop

87 @ClassicPopMag As someone who first started going to clubs towards the end of the 80s, the height of dancefloor fashion for me was a James T-shirt and a particularly swanky pair of Nike Air Jordans. So I have to take my Reni bucket hat off in appreciation to the Blitz club crowd who really pulled out all of the stops when it came to dressing to the nines for a big night out. The Blitz’s DJ Rusty Egan quite rightly rejects the reductive idea that the club night he co-founded with Steve Strange invented the 80s wholesale, but it’s fair to say this most unprepossessing of venues – a World War II-themed wine bar for most of the week in Covent Garden, no less – lit the fuse of…

Marc Almond has announced his solo return with a diverse new covers album, I’m Not Anyone, set for release on 12 July. “A great song can never die and should always find a new life and audience,” says Almond about the record. “I can’t simply just sing any song; I have to feel that if I could, I would have written it myself – it’s just that someone else said it first, and far better than me.” Lead single, Elusive Butterfly, finds Marc revisiting Bob Lind’s esoteric 1965 folk classic, while the Paul Anka-penned title track is an emotional ballad about defiance and pride featuring Almond’s trademark emotive delivery. Other highlights include interpretations of Don McLean’s powerful Chain Lightning and the Soft Cell singer’s duet with Bryan Chambers on a…

What was the first pop song you remember truly loving? It has to be way back in the 70s. My mum had a lot of Carole King. I remember enjoying Tapestry and recall loving those early ABBA albums. The first song I remember really being into, though, was Seasons In The Sun by Terry Jacks. There was also Love Is In The Air by John Paul Young and Ain’t No Stopping Us Now by McFadden And Whitehead. Those are my earliest memories. Do you have a favourite album? If you could put every Joan Armatrading track onto an album, that would be it. She has had the biggest effect on my life. In those seminal moments, it was always Joan Armatrading, to this day. So if you could mash every…

It’s perhaps only with almost 25 years of hindsight that we can make sense of the strange tectonic plate shifts that took place in pop music at the end of the last century. As we were all busy worrying that planes would fall out of the sky, thanks to the millennium bug, and as every media outlet painstakingly reviewed the previous 100 years of news and culture, trance overlaid itself on the charts and pop went crazy, getting faster and faster and faster. This phenomenon reached its absolute peak with the Gouryella Remix of Binary Finary’s 1999. Introduced by Gail Porter on Top Of The Pops when they went on an outside broadcast to the Revolution nightclub in Edinburgh, it’s a brutal, relentless and uplifting electronic instrumental that reached the…

It’s typical of the extraordinary folklore of the Blitz club that none other than Boy George worked at its cloakroom, though it’s fair to say that he was far from a model employee. George explains: “Steve Strange gave me that job as a kind of put-down, but I loved being the first and last thing that people saw. I lost coats or gave them to the wrong people and I stole a few bob – I have been paid back for stealing! “I often left my post to dance and got ticked off by Steve. The night Bowie came to the Blitz, I was beckoned upstairs by Steve – ‘DB wants to meet you’. I couldn’t get past the sea of people blocking the stairs up to where Bowie was…

WHERE ITS PREDECESSOR IS GRITTIER AND MORE DYSTOPIAN, TOUCH IS LUSHER SONICALLY AND MORE PLAYFUL Early success can be the death of a burgeoning artist, suddenly thrust into the spotlight and then tasked with repeating the feat. No such worries for former flames, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. By the time they ascended to the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 at the start of 1983, the ‘hot new act’ were already industry old-timers. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) was actually their fifth studio album together, including the three long-players in two years by New Wave hopefuls, The Tourists – and that’s before we get on to Dave Stewart’s two long-forgotten, early-70s records with the folk group, Longdancer. So, when the time came to follow up the Eurythmics’ breakthrough,…

HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN What is it with this fascination among Classic Pop favourites for belting out anthems while taking a stroll on the edge of a windswept cliff? It highlights a flagrant disregard for their own safety and the coastguard’s stretched resources. Perhaps Eurythmics kickstarted the trend, later aped a zillion times from Tears For Fears’ Shout to The Cure’s Just Like Heaven. The duo’s atmospheric archetype was filmed on Orkney, featuring the towering sea stack of the Old Man of Hoy. Elsewhere, the video adopts a slightly sinister voyeuristic concept, with Dave’s character stalking Annie with a film camera. WHO’S THAT GIRL? Set in a cabaret style bar, Annie is reimagined as a sultry blonde singer, dolled up in a shoulder-length 60s wig. Dave meanwhile is the…

WIN A SIGNED COPY OF SANANDA MAITREYA’S NEW STUDIO ALBUM! Classic Pop is thrilled to offer its readers an exclusive chance to win one of five signed copies of Sananda Maitreya’s brand new album, The Pegasus Project: Pegasus & The Swan, which is due for release on 11 May. SCAN THE QR CODE TO ENTER Music has a long history of being influenced by singers becoming parents. Sananda Maitreya might not have written any direct odes to his two sons, 13-year-old Francesco and Federico, 11, but fatherhood has reminded Maitreya of a valuable lesson about songwriting. “When my sons were born, I was confronted by baby TV every day,” says Sananda from his home in Milan, where he’s lived since meeting his wife, Francesca, at the start of the century.…

If there’s any barometer of Gabrielle’s cultural worth in the 2020s, look no further than the promo for Stormzy’s 2022 single Mel Made Me Do It. There she was, an artist whose first hit was a staggering 29 years ago, sharing screen time with this decade’s hottest UK rapper and such names as Usain Bolt, José Mourinho and Ian Wright. Similarly, when the now 54-year-old released her latest single, the gorgeous, giddily infectious A Place in Your Heart, there she was on Graham Norton’s top-rated chat show. Her last album, 2021’s Do It Again, went Top 5. The one before that almost did the same. When the singer gigged in 2023, for the 30 Years Of Dreaming Tour, she sold out all 32 dates. Gabrielle, it seems, is as exalted…

LITTLE PEOPLE BIG MUSIC ★★★★☆ “Singing as a man/ Words written as a boy,” Rolo McGinty reveals amid I Can Take It’s Latin flavours. Though they’re about his short time locked up as a 1970s young offender, they’re indicative of the youthful joie de vivre crucial to The Woodentops’ fourth album, their first since 2014’s Granular Tales. Reunited with co-founder and guitarist Simon Mawby and bassist Frank DeFreitas, McGinty launches nonchalantly into Liquid Thinking as though gone a mere couple of days, but it might also have sat just as well on 1986’s Giant (recently celebrated in Classic Pop), just as percussive stomper Lately might have suited its 1988 follow-up, Wooden Foot Cops On The Highway. A song about a toxic relationship with a croupier, Can’t Stand Still meanwhile delivers…

WORLD CIRCUIT ★★★☆☆ Paraorchestra are the world’s first fully-integrated orchestra of disabled and non-disabled musicians. Conducted by Charles Hazlewood, they’ve previously played with Jarvis Cocker and Gruff Rhys, as well as touring a show reworking Kraftwerk. Their debut album doubles as Brett Anderson’s first solo LP since Suede reformed, and his first covers record. Echo & The Bunnymen’s The Killing Moon is Anderson at his most dramatic but with enough control to soar in time with Paraorchestra’s heightened playing. Japan’s Nightporter is similarly expressive, a performance even David Sylvian would admire. OK, maybe. Nadine Shah sounds as noirish as Nico with Anderson on Mercury Rev’s Holes, though the pair are more playful on Skeeter Davis’ The End Of The World. Not everything works: even Anderson can’t bring anything new to…

ICEPOP ★★★☆☆ Initially reforming in 2016, by the time The Zutons began making their first new album since 2008 during lockdown, guitarist Boyan Chowdhury and bassist Russell Pritchard were out again. While it’s tough to precisely quantify their absence, the remaining trio’s comeback doesn’t live up to their Who Killed The Zutons? debut. For every winningly simple piano ‘n’ handclaps campfire vibe like Best Of Me, there’s an aimless jam like Company. The title track zips along with the restless energy of You Will You Won’t, but Disappear aptly fades into the background for five minutes, despite producer Nile Rodgers’ mystical voiceover at its close. Rodgers and Ian Broudie – who rarely produces anyone outside of his own music now – are as gifted a production duo as anyone could…

BIG MOON ★★★☆☆ While she’s largely associated with her flirtation with pop stardom at the end of the 70s, it’d be fairer to think of Judie Tzuke as a gifted songwriter and someone whose voice has the power to make you stop and listen attentively. Tzuke’s first solo album since 2017 offers plenty of moments where she makes this happen, notably on the stripped-back, folk-tinged Idiot Kings or the lush Sunflowers. At times, though, the collection seems too sonically in thrall to 80s AOR – especially jarring when a squalling guitar solo overwhelms the smoky electronica of opener Unsinkable. JW…

BARRY ADAMSON INC ★★★★☆ Barry Adamson’s first album for eight years devours the sonic madeleines of childhood more than any of his since 1989’s Moss Side Story. On Cut To Black, he revisits the Northern Soul clubs of his youth via opener The Last Words Of Sam Cooke, digging into rock’n’roll and swamp blues elsewhere. The sometime Bad Seed has always had an eye and ear for the cinematic, which manifests itself on Waiting For The End Of Time, a song so ornately lush that you’ll find yourself longing for the apocalypse. JA…

DEMON ★★★★★ One word sums up a 4CD boxset of the music played at the Blitz club: finally. No, really, that’s all you need to know about the Blitz’s resident founding DJ Rusty Egan belatedly getting to assemble his favourite Blitz moments: it’s all here. Go and buy it right now and we’ll see you back here for more hoopla once you’re done. Come on, what are you waiting for? Oh alright, if you will insist on some context: considering the Blitz’s importance to Britain’s cultural life, it’s bizarre that it hasn’t been fully documented before. If Egan doesn’t quite accept that the Blitz invented the 80s as we know it, then by fomenting the likes of Spandau Ballet and Culture Club – not to mention having Grayson Perry, John…

EDSEL ★★★★☆ In lieu of a new Belinda Carlisle studio album, Edsel are doing an admirable job collating her back catalogue. After the first two volumes covered her studio LPs, this 4CD sweeps up the albums’ accompanying extras: sundry B-sides, soundtrack work and various odds and ends. Very much a mixed bag, then. The first two CDs include a fairly straight cover of Jealous Guy, a duet with Freda Payne on Band Of Gold that’s hamstrung by its tinny mid-80s production, and coulda-been singles like Love Walks In and Whatcha Doin’ To Me? Best of all is a startling Prodigy-style version of The Sex Pistols’ Submission: a reminder that Carlisle has a punk past as authentic as anyone’s. Then there’s a CD of the 7” mixes of the hits, plus…

LONDON Critics have spent 40 years casting Vini Reilly as a guitar god and tragic, sometimes inadvertently self-destructive figure, but these are distractions from his unique, timeless artistry. Even those who are persuaded, however, find the Tony Wilson protégé’s catalogue hard to negotiate. Well, skip to 1989, when this LP joined 1980 debut The Return Of... and 1987’s The Guitar And Other Machines as a perfect introduction to his charms. Now available as a 5CD boxset (including four unreleased tracks) and, in the original rejected sleeve, a Record Store Day vinyl edition, the parent album’s magic is encapsulated by Otis, whose Tracy Chapman and Otis Redding samples enrich bubbling synths and spider-webbed guitar melodies. Not enough? Try Opera 1 and Opera 2’s eerie fragility or People’s Pleasure Park’s driving funk,…

SACRED BONES ★★★★☆ Formed in Hamburg in 1980, Xmal Deutschland confounded expectations by sounding formidable almost straight away. The all-female five-piece’s debut single Schwarze Welt, originally released on local label ZickZack – home to Einstürzende Neubauten and DAF for a time – is a stomping opening with crunching guitars and tribal drumming, a perfect specimen of the German New Wave. As these 1981-82 songs demonstrate, Xmal enriched their music with nascent electronics on tracks such as Incubus Succubus, helping to invent goth.  Jeremy Allen…

MUSIC ON VINYL ★★★☆☆ It’s a puzzle as to why some singles hit big, only for the album they’re attached to sink like the Bismark. So it was with Gloria, Laura Branigan’s 1982 chartstorming cover of Umberto Tozzi’s anaemic original. Despite peaking at No.6 in the UK, her debut album bombed over here. Which is a surprise as there’s nothing on this bombastic, big-voiced offering – now back out on vinyl – that’s any different to her signature song. “If you liked Gloria,” Branigan’s tagline should have read, “then you’ll find this album perfectly acceptable.” Steve O’Brien…

Sheena Easton was arguably the world’s first reality TV star. Before Nasty Nick, before Shayne Ward, before Kelly Clarkson, came this shy girl from Glasgow, who television viewers got to know via the BBC documentary show The Big Time. It was already on its third series by the time it got round to Sheena Shirley Easton. Created by That’s Life!’s Esther Rantzen, its mission each episode was to follow a member of the public whose star was on the ascendance. Previous instalments had covered comedians, trapezists, racing car drivers and jockeys, before Easton featured on 2 July 1980. The episode showed her recording the single Modern Girl, which would become her first hit in the UK, where it nestled at No.8. But it was with its follow-up, Morning Train (Nine…

87 Anthem Publishing Suite 6, Piccadilly House, London Road, Bath, BA1 6PL Tel +44 (0)1225 489 984 www.classicpopmag.com Cover image ©Simon Fowler Subscriber cover image ©Peter Ashworth All other magazine images ©Getty, except where stated WHICH BLITZ CLUB SONG WOULD GET YOU ON THE DANCEFLOOR? EDITOR Steve Harnell steve.harnell@anthem.co.uk Only After Dark – Mick Ronson *1 SENIOR ART EDITOR Alex Duce alex.duce@anthem.co.uk A Forest – The Cure ADVERTISING MANAGER Leah Fitz-Henry leah.fitz-henry@anthem.co.uk Heart Of Glass – Blondie SUB-EDITOR Rik Flynn Moscow Discow – Telex *2 SENIOR MARKETING EXECUTIVE Rosie Pankhurst rosie.pankhurst@anthem.co.uk La Vie En Rose – Grace Jones MARKETING ASSISTANT Alice Cavey alice.cavey@anthem.co.uk Pop Muzik – M DIGITAL EDITOR Dan Biggane The Damned Don’t Cry – Visage CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jenny Cook…

02 The South African government bans Pink Floyd’s single Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) after Black children adopt the song to protest against their inferior education. 03 Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band begin a six-week run at No.1 on the US albums chart with 11th long-player Against The Wind. 03 Dexys Midnight Runners hit No.1 in the UK for the first time with Geno, a song written about US soul singer Geno Washington. 09 I Don’t Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats wins Best Pop Song and Outstanding British Lyric at the 25th Ivor Novello Awards. 19 Ringo Starr and girlfriend Barbara Bach are involved in a car crash at a roundabout on the A3. Coincidentally, the accident occurs just half a mile from where Marc…

Approaching five decades into a career as one of the world’s most successful and respected singer-songwriters, you might think Neil Finn would have this whole business of making music figured out by now. But no: 47 years after joining his brother Tim in New Wave art rockers Split Enz, and 39 since forming his own band, the Crowded House frontman is no closer to unravelling the cosmic mysteries of the song. Don’t imagine for a second, though, that he’s going to stop trying. “As life goes on, it gets harder to feel the moments of inspiration are worth it – especially when physicality becomes more difficult,” reflects the laidback New Zealander when Classic Pop meets him and fellow Crowded House founder, Australian bassist Nick Seymour, at their record label’s London…

What is it? Few genres epitomise early-90s US pop as much as new jack swing. Also recognised as swingbeat, it emerged towards the end of the 80s and was a delectable stir-fry of soul, jazz, hip-hop and contemporary R&B. Sonically, it was the newly available SP1200 and 808 drum machines, married to classic funk and soul samples and hip-hop beats that defined its crisp, synthesized sound. If your common or garden soul was the soundtrack to the bedroom or the lounge bar, new jack swing had the street smarts, providing the grit in the R&B oyster. It was music critic Barry Michael Cooper who birthed the term. As a writer for New York City’s The Village Voice magazine, he’d been sent to Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater to interview the then…

THE HOT LIST 86 Billy Idol, Ladsclub, Bruce Hornsby & YMUSIC (BRHYM), Vampire Weekend NEW RELEASES 87 Pet Shop Boys, Paul Weller, Mark Knopfler, Crowded House, Shaznay Lewis, Sananda Maitreya, Gabrielle, The Woodentops, The Blow Monkeys, The Zutons, Richard Hawley, Lenny Kravitz, Paraorchestra, A Certain Ratio, Fabiana Palladino, Barry Adamson, Bright Light Bright Light, Trifecta, Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band, Judie Tzuke, Alfie Templeman REISSUES 94 Various Artists – Rusty Egan Presents BLITZED!, Blancmange, Girls Aloud, Electribe 101, Sparks/Noël, Air, Various Artists – Now Yearbook 74, Now Yearbook 90 Extra, Now 12” 80s: 1982 Part 2, Now 80s Dancefloor: R&B & Funk, Keane, Tina Turner, Flowered Up, Belinda Carlisle, China Crisis, The Durutti Column, The Cure, Manic Street Preachers, Cranes, Xmal Deutschland, Looper, Laura Branigan, The Toy Dolls,…

66 POLYDOR ★★★★☆ By Paul Weller’s prolific standards, the three-year gap since Fat Pop has been like waiting for a new album by The La’s. The one exception to Weller’s mighty run since 2008’s 22 Dreams was 2018’s True Meanings – the only time in the subsequent 16 years it’s felt like the Modfather was offering what traditionalists wanted, in a disappointing return to reflective ballads. To generalise, 66 is everything that True Meanings wasn’t. Having Peter Blake design the sleeve for the first time since Stanley Road hints that Weller is back on familiar territory. Yet, while 66 is heavy on ballads, he’s managed to weave in his recent jazzy grooves into the arrangements, while his voice is more supple than the Heavy Soul days, too. Really, 66 could…

TREEHOUSE ★★★★☆ As Sananda Maitreya makes it clear in this issue, his first UK show for 22 years this summer doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be rolling out the hits. He’s got more than enough music to keep everyone entertained since re-emerging in 2005 with the music he dubs “Post-Millennial Rock”. Truth is, Maitreya could dust off a show exclusively from his 13th album and it would be a sensation. As with many of his recent LPs, there’s a lot of material to get through: 41 tracks, including a dozen or so alternative versions. Coupled with the fact it completes a trilogy of albums based on the myth of Prometheus’ exile from Mount Olympus, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a forbidding prospect. Not a bit of it. Not so…

LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW ★★★☆☆ With six albums since they reformed in 2007, Dr Robert’s crew have been among the most productive of 80s bands second time out. But now, for some reason, they’ve chosen this moment to make a strippeddown record that discards the various embellishments which usually fill out their sound. It’s a nice idea in theory, but in practice the drier-than-the-Sahara production leaves Robert’s voice exposed at a time when it’s showing signs of age. On some songs, he hovers uncertainly in the vague vicinity of notes. On others – and there’s no other way of saying this – he’s just plain flat. In small doses, this needn’t necessarily be deal-breaking; indeed, it makes recent single, the string-laden weepie Stranger To Me Now, all the more affecting.…

BMG ★★★☆☆ The video to TK421 caused ripples of excitement when it was released last October, with Lenny Kravitz revealing more to the viewer than just the secret of how to stay young. Once over the shock of a naked, smoking, impossibly buff, soon-to-be-sexagenarian Kravitz, the propulsive electro-funk track stood up reasonably well, with his trademark mellifluous growling and hollering proving that he’s in fine voice, too. It all seemed to bode well for his 12th studio album, which has coincided with Kravitz’s place on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. So is Blue Electric Light a return to form? It’s certainly a return to the tried-and-tested formula of a Lenny Kravitz record: which is to say, a well-produced, almost entirely self-played album with few surprises, which could have been made…

MODERN SKY Michael Head has capitalised on the momentum generated by 2022’s Dear Scott and renewed interest in his first band The Pale Fountains. Three months before releasing his memoir, Ciao Ciao Bambino, Head has plotted out another fine studio effort. Produced by Bill Ryder-Jones these tunes brim with well-crafted arrangements and orchestration. Strings thunder through Shirl’s Ghost, while spicy horns decorate Ciao Ciao Bambino and You’re A Long Time Dead feels like a lovingly restored antique. Head’s late-career upswing continues apace. AZ…

KSCOPE ★★★★☆ Although prog/jazz fusion trio Trifecta feature musos with top-end chops, their second album is heavy on self-indulgent, directionless irony like Stroboscopic Fennel and Ouch! My OCD. Nick Beggs does at least get some fine bass moments on Wake Up Call and the funky Sibling Rivalry. For the most part an instrumental, spaced-out circus, the best moments contain shape and lyrics, notably Once Around The Sun With You (featuring Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson) and Canary In A Five And Dime. Thankfully there are no 12-minute epics but, at 19 tracks, it lingers way too long. Lee Campbell…

MUTE ★★★★☆ Mixing scratchy funk, jagged guitar and the freewheeling spirit of jazz, Manchester’s A Certain Ratio did as much as anyone to invent post-punk. Over 45 years later, they remain very much a going concern. Indeed, ACR are flourishing, as proved by the trio’s back-to-basics 13th album – largely recorded over a 12-hour session with producer Dan Carey. Standouts include the angular pop of God Knows and the reflective yet funky We All Need, but more important is the sense of ACR referencing the past while still moving forwards. Jonathan Wright…

PARLOPHONE ★★★★☆ Air’s debut full-length arrived in 1998, as the easy listening revival expired and downtempo, ambient and trip-hop music began to merge beneath the chillout umbrella. The French duo accelerated this metamorphosis, gracefully blending downbeat electronica, film scores, pop, easy listening (of course!) and even jazz. What made them stand out, however, was their work’s humanity: it didn’t sound like machines had made it. As it happens, Moon Safari didn’t use samples at all. Instead, it employed Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel’s influences as a platform for musical experimentalism. Amid their electronic instrumentation, one could detect early-70s Serge Gainsbourg in the basslines of both La Femme D’Argent and Talisman, the latter’s keyboards also echoing Bob James’ 1978 classic Angela, aka Taxi’s haunting theme tune, while Ce Matin-Là’s opening guitars…

ISLAND ★★★★☆ Currently writing a new album which the quartet say will be lighter than 2019’s introspective comeback Cause And Effect, Keane celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut with a solid reissue, adding 12 B-sides to CD2/LP2 and a disc of demos for every album track on the 3CD set. The package highlights how many strong tunes the then-trio had amassed: having done their time on the pub circuit and single-only indie labels before Island finally signed them, Hopes And Fears sounded ready for arenas largely because Keane were writing anthems trying to outgrow their surroundings: a live disc from the era would have been a welcome CD4. At a time now when too many singer-songwriters sound like knock-offs of Tom Chaplin, it’s easy to forget how Keane stood…

LAST NIGHT FROM GLASGOW ★★★★☆ Still awaiting their place in the pantheon of 80s greats, China Crisis follow last year’s vinyl reissue of 1982’s Difficult Shapes & Passive Rhythms with a 2LP/deluxe CD compilation providing multiple opportunities to celebrate their bittersweet strengths, sometimes overlooked or even dismissed as nostalgically indulgent. They’re taking no risks, though: their studied but jaunty pop, once undercut by both their political leanings and unashamedly sentimental tendencies, is given a spit polish here, with a dozen tracks rebuilt by Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon alongside producer Mark Phythian, while string and brass arrangements arrive via keyboardist Jack Hymers and saxophonist Eric Animan. These enhancements can be subtle, as on the breezy Black Man Ray, or immediate, as the orchestral flourishes opening the perky King In A…

SONY ★★★★☆ The Manics’ only album since Generation Terrorists to miss the UK Top 10, Lifeblood’s evocation of Big Music has aged superbly, its 80s mood enhanced by A Song For Departure recalling Little Lies – rounded off by 1985 remixes from Gwenno (think Martin Hannett) and Steven Wilson’s none-more-Arthur Baker take. Finally back on vinyl, the 3CD set adds demos, a BBC session and bonus tracks: Nicky Wire’s spoken shoegaze mirage Failure Bound is one of the great Manics B-sides. Long overdue its moment. JE…

POLYDOR ★★★★☆ A year after the hits-centred Show from 1992, the same year’s gig from Paris arena Le Zenith is also reissued on CD/2LP. Adding previously unreleased intense versions of Shake Dog Shake and Hot Hot Hot!!!, Paris is generally more hypnotic than Show. Although Close To Me is teasing, the Wish line-up mostly enjoy rumbling around The Cure’s cultier, doomier moments. Brooding and beautiful, with a heart-stopping Catch, mix it with Show for a fabulous light and shade live album worthy of their current epic concerts.  JE…

CHERRY RED ★★★★☆ Infamously, the Sunderland punks’ version of Nellie The Elephant gatecrashed the Top 10 at Christmas 1984, seeing them rub shoulders with Band Aid, Madonna and Wham! in one of the most competitive charts of all time. If Nellie made you smile, then this 2CD will see you grinning madly. It’s ramalama pop-punk all the way for 37 songs, with Dolls’ originals like We’re Mad, Deirdre’s A Slag and the brilliantly sick I’ve Got Asthma jostling for space with their versions of Livin’ La Vida Loca and Rupert The Bear. Puerile, very silly, but ultimately good fun.  BS…

6 MARCH ★★★☆☆ The world of tribute bands is pretty crowded, but Lust For Life stand above many, offering substantially more credibility points than most thanks to a line-up of musicians with a solid connection to the source. Essentially a tribute to Iggy Pop’s 1977 solo album (and his second David Bowie collaboration) Lust For Life, at the centre of the band are guitarist Kevin Armstrong and Blondie’s rhythm section – drummer Clem Burke and bassist (and ex-Sex Pistol) Glen Matlock – all of whom have previously worked with Iggy. They’re joined by Luís Correia (an associate of Bowie guitarist Earl Slick and pal of Spandau’s Steve Norman) and keyboard player Florence Sabeva (from Heaven 17 and Earl Slick’s Station To Station tour), while taking the unenviable task of lead…

CMP TEXT ★★★★★ In what is sure to be a monumental year in the history of ABBA – it is now half a century since their Eurovision win – Carl Magnus Palm once again asserts himself as the premier documentarian of the iconic Swedish group’s oeuvre. Following the definitive biography, Bright Lights Dark Shadows and The Complete Recording Sessions – as concise an overview of their studio work as you are ever likely to get, comes ABBA On Record, a superb companion to the latter. This latest work provides a fascinating insight into what went into ABBA’s recordings once they left the studio, discussing the many marketing decisions involved in turning a song into a hit. Packed with the detail we’ve come to expect from Palm, he examines every release…

CONSTABLE ★★★★☆ Despite being billed as “an alternative history of popular music”, the cast of The Rejects contains an array of household names. Delving in, the sub-heading becomes clear as it’s a collection of brief biographies of the almost famous – those musicians dismissed from their duties as bands were on the cusp of success – and therefore often erased from official histories. Despite a wide range of genres, the reasons for ejecting band members are largely universal – not fitting an image, a clash of personalities, behavioural issues and substance abuse seem to be the key issues. Drawing from over two decades working in the industry, Collinson has been privy to insider info that he pours into entries for artists as diverse as Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, The Beatles and…

Alongside the official 4CD/4LP physical release of Rusty Egan Presents BLITZED!, the DJ is planning to upload an expanded version onto Spotify of all 253 songs that he played during the club’s lifetime which are available on streaming. He reveals: “There are some artists who won’t license their music to compilations, like David Bowie. And I couldn’t fit every song on, not even onto four CDs. There are probably about 50playlists on Spotify that claim to be the music I played at Blitz, but none of them are real until now.” Rusty is also planning his autobiography – but admits it might be too spicy to be published. He grins: “I wrote 350 pages during Covid. Then my lawyer read it, and now it’s 50 pages. I’ve got no filter,…

ANNIE LENNOX The soulful diva with the huge voice met her future ex Stewart while studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London. DAVE STEWART The boy from Sunderland, whose 70s folk band were signed to Elton John’s label, without success. Then came The Catch and The Tourists, before finally hitting it big-time with his former beau. DICK CUTHELL A true industry heavyweight, Liverpoolborn Cuthell appeared on Bob Marley’s Exodus, before joining Rico Rodriguez in The Specials, then Fun Boy Three. He also performed with The Pogues and Madness. On Touch, he contributes the trumpet, flugelhorn and cornet. DEAN GARCIA Later known for the group Curve, with Toni Halliday, Garcia played bass in Eurythmics’ live band, also performing on Be Yourself Tonight. MICHAEL KAMEN The American classical composer and…

Send your Poparazzi pics now to steve.harnell@anthem.co.uk ALISON MOYET WITH EDDIE PATON ”This shot was taken after Alison’s amazing show at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on 5 October 2013 during her tour for The Minutes album. Alison was so friendly and we discussed how it had been reported that some audience members had been unhappy she was performing a more electronic set on the tour. I obviously told her she was right to stick to her guns and play what she wanted! I love the smile on her face in this photo – she looks so happy and is glowing. I’ve gone on to see Alison a further three times since, twice supporting Tears For Fears.” SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR WITH ADRIAN KEEBLE ”I caught up with Sophie following her performance…

Music history reveals that even the most popular and revered of acts endured a period of commercial decline before getting their careers back on track, and there are plenty of examples of a return to form in our latest countdown. Additionally, we’ve focused on acts who returned after a lengthy break, as well as those who successfully overcame tragedy or a change in personnel. Many readers will correctly observe that some of the artists and bands in our list never went away, but it’s fair to say that some of these acts’ careers had creatively and commercially stagnated, before they bounced back with a special record that rekindled their fortunes... 2O GARY NUMAN AQUESTION OF FAITH (1994) Gary Numan’s career hit rock bottom in 1992 with Machine + Soul, an…

1 BILLY IDOL REBEL YELL The lip-curlin’ punk icon has a few surprises up his leather-jacketed sleeve on a forthcoming deluxe expanded edition of the Rebel Yell album to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The reissue includes a selection of previously unreleased songs and demos, the Poolside remix of hit single Eyes Without A Face and the never-before-heard Best Way Out Of Here from the original recording sessions. A barnstorming unreleased cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore trails the reissue and is now available on streaming platforms. The expanded reissue is available in 2LP, 2CD and digital formats from 26 April. 2 LADSCLUB LADSCLUB Brighton-based duo Ladsclub have honed a set of original demos that were first posted online a year ago into an impressive debut album of…

BRITISH GROVE ★★★☆☆ Two months after the instruments which birthed Money For Nothing and Walk Of Life sold at auction for over £1 million in total, Mark Knopfler returns to prove his guitar heroics are still intact. Of course, having long since settled into the status of elder statesman, his 10th album is less arena axeman and more front porch troubadour. Once again produced by former bandmate Guy Fletcher, the follow-up to 2018’s Down The Road Wherever mines a similar vein of country, blues, folk and Americana, the loping grooves of opener Two Pairs Of Hands the only concession to any musical developments since Dire Straits disbanded 29 years ago. Yet, amid all the genial, laidback vibes, there’s an occasional lyrical bite. Boasting wistful pedal steel from Grammy-winning sideman Greg…

PAGES 1.9.7.5 ★★★★☆ Six years after All Saints’ most recent album and fully 20 years after Open was her only previous solo LP, Shaznay Lewis finally unveils more of her songwriting, resulting in 12 further reminders of her varied skills within most forms of pop. While Open had a stellar backroom cast including Rick Nowels, Basement Jaxx and Bacon & Quarmby helping out, here Florence + The Machine co-writer Ant Whiting is the most instantly familiar name. Lewis is undeniably the big talent this time around. The summery mood of Got To Let Go is the closest to Lewis’ day job and would doubtless have reached No.1 if it had been the follow-up to Pure Shores. Lyrically, it’s more similar to the rest of the album. Empowerment is ultimately the…

BMG ★★★★☆ Although it appeared a rum move at the time, after appearing on The Masked Singer in 2021 Gabrielle is more of a star than since the Out Of Reach days, with her biggest ever headline show at London O2 happening next year. It helps that she’s also supported Adele and featured with Stormzy in the interim. Her covers album Do It Again was solid, but was released suspiciously quickly after her primetime ITV residency. Gabrielle’s first album of fresh material in six years is where she needs to show she can still craft new songs worthy of that forthcoming arena tour. Thankfully, she comfortably delivers, though not in ways usually associated with her music. Gabrielle’s heartfelt lyrics have previously been offset by her music’s lightness, hence her frustration…

BMG ★★★★☆ Richard Hawley has several excellent excuses to explain why In This City They Call You Love is his first new album in five years: his musical Standing At The Sky’s Edge is a West End hit, winning Best Original Score at the 2023 Olivier Awards; he was shortlisted for Best Original Song at the Oscars for co-writing Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven) with Jarvis Cocker and Wes Anderson; and Hawley released Now Then, an extensive Best Of compilation in 2023. With its crisp arrangements and airtight songwriting, In This City They Call You Love is worth the wait. Produced by Hawley with his team of Mark Sheridan and Colin Elliot, the singersongwriter’s smoky vocals shroud propulsive rockers (Deep Space), snaky country-blues (Two For His Heels), delicate, twangy…

XL ★★★★☆ The daughter of bass overlord Pino and The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts singer Maz, Fabiana Palladino produces her debut with maverick popster Jai Paul. That she’s able to be a distinctive talent away from her lineage is credit not only to Palladino’s adaptable voice – icily detached on the shiny Closer, yearning on dramatic ballad Forever – but her sharp songwriting, too. While the sleek pop largely inhabits Jessie Ware’s polished futurism, Shoulda’s more organic kinetic pulse suggests Palladino’s future might be best served by visceral rock’n’roll. JE…

CHESS CLUB ★★★★☆ While Bedfordshire-raised Alfie Templeman’s 2022 debut Mellow Moon was engagingly uplifting, it didn’t prepare anyone for such a stratospheric leap above his peers for album two. Beck is an obvious touchstone, but only for being a genre-mashing maverick. Hello Lonely and Drag merge Was (Not Was), LCD Soundsystem and Phoenix to dizzying effect, while Nile Rodgers’ guitar on Just A Dance is one of many delights on a summer whirlwind. Mastering featherlight acoustic pop in Submarine and grunge on Switch just because he can, Templeman emerges as a major talent. JE…

YSKWN ★★★★☆ After exploring LGBTQ+ nightlife’s history last time, Erasure/Scissor Sisters associate Rod Thomas looks inward, while keeping the strobe lights at full. As he sings on Boys Etc, “I bring you music while others bring you noise,” a neat summary of his determination to keep Hi-NRG ablaze. Down To One and Heartslap are galloping rave, topped off by Ultra Naté giving it plenty on Every Emotion. Rod can do Marc Almond-style emoting, too, but this is defying the world to stop him and anyone else having big fun, youthful or not. JE…

LONDON ★★★★☆ Since Blancmange started up again in 2011, Neil Arthur has released seven regular albums, plus five in the instrumental Nil By Mouth series, demo collection Waiting Room, reworkings set Happy Families Too and three further LPs with side-projects Near Future and Fader. It’s an incredible output for someone who only released one solo album after Blancmange split in 1986, but it’s also been hard to keep track. Handily, the first regular Blancmange compilation since 2012 does a great job of showcasing how Arthur (sadly without original bandmate Stephen Luscombe since 2012 because of ill health) has kept the quality up. While that 2012 set The Very Best Of was more exhaustive in compiling the first Blancmange era, Everything Is Connected makes up for lacking I’ve Seen The Word…

LIL’ BEETHOVEN ★★★★★/★★★★☆ At the start of 1979, the Mael brothers had grown bored of their traditional set-up. After expressing an interest in hooking up with Giorgio Moroder, whose work with Donna Summer had explored the possibilities of a guitar-free future, Sparks soon found themselves at his Munich studio working on their eighth LP. Despite returning Sparks to the Top 20 after a four-year absence with its almost title track and the seismic Beat The Clock, the album fared less well with critics. It spent one whole week at No.73. Fortunately, the aheadness of the Maels – Joy Division were big fans – was rewarded over time. It’s now one of Sparks’ best-known albums, rightly cited as being key to the birth of synth-pop. Reissued with a bonus CD of…

NOW ★★★★★/★★★★☆/★★★★★/★★★★☆ 1974 saw Bacofoil bangers The Sweet and Slade from the previous year’s glam explosion give way to Mud to almost bookend the year with the giant Tiger Feet and Lonely This Christmas, while a rock’n’roll revival offered Showaddywaddy and The Rubettes’ glorious Sugar Baby Love, plus the oncoming mania of The Bay City Rollers. The beginnings of disco came from George McRae’s mighty Rock Your Baby, The Hues Corporation’s Rock The Boat and the hysterical Disco Tex & His Sex-O-Lettes’ Get Dancin’, next to luxurious soul-pop by The Stylistics, Barry White and The Three Degrees. All these moods are on Now Yearbook 74, along with some novelties – Kung Fu Fighting, The Wombling Song, the gloomsome Seasons In The Sun – and oldies-radio staples How Long, You Ain’t…

LONDON ★★★★☆ It’s slightly stretching a point to call this the first reissue of Flowered Up’s sole studio album: such is the scarcity of their material, 2005’s Best Of was basically the 1991 original LP, with their seminal rave anthem Weekender tagged on to the end. But, having been freshly remastered by keyboardist Tim Dorney, and with a welcome second disc of remixes and B-sides, here is the definitive document of a band whose infectious blend of baggy and acid house saw them dubbed (somewhat reductively) “the London Happy Mondays”. This time, we get no fewer than four versions of Weekender – though several are WINO (Weekender In Name Only), and nothing comes close to the sweat-soaked, 5am euphoria of the 13-minute original. A Life With Brian itself, meanwhile, stands…

DADAPHONIC ★★★★☆ Pitched somewhere between early Banshees and Cocteau Twins having a bad day after falling down a well, Cranes were an odd proposition. Nowhere is that truer than on Fuse, laid down on a four-track and released solely on cassette in 1986. If it seems incongruous that a DIY democum-LP has now been remastered at Abbey Road, it’s worth pointing out these reissued recordings are of far more than historical value. Rather, they reveal a young band fearlessly experimenting and producing music that’s densely textured and eerie. Jonathan Wright…

MUTE ★★★★☆ A cult classic from 1999, made when he was still Belle And Sebastian’s bassist, Stuart David’s debut album with his wife Karn is a cut-and-paste delight. Spoken word, lo-fi glam and potential kids TV themes build up to the title track, whose “La-la-la-la” refrain remains a call to the dancefloor for any indie fan of the era. The new 2CD edition (also finally getting the album on vinyl) adds three new mixes plus rarities including Pulp’s faintly sinister six-minute wicca folk remix of Up A Tree. Sampledelia never sounded so childlike. JE…

BMG ★★★☆☆ As well-reviewed as it was on its release in 2001, Garbage’s third album Beautiful Garbage alarmed many rock purists with its excursions into electronica. Perhaps stung by their fanbase’s reaction, Shirley Manson’s gang went back to their post-grunge roots for 2005’s follow-up – only the results are less interesting. While its predecessor felt more open-minded, album four, reissued with a second CD of B-sides, remixes and demos, is much more meat and potatoes. A collection of thrashy rock workouts, only the swooning It’s All Over But The Crying breaks the sonic monotony. SO…

PALAZZO ★★★★☆ Published to coincide with The Boss’ impending 75th birthday and the fact he has overcome the health problems that forced a halt to his tour last year and will be packing our stadiums again this summer, Springsteen: Album By Album commemorates his incredible body of work that now spans 50+ years. Kicking off with 1973’s Greetings From Astbury Park, N.J., White takes a chronological deep dive into each of Bruce’s 21 studio albums up to his most recent, 2022’s Only The Strong Survive. In each case, the LP’s inspiration and creation are explored in detail along with archival interviews and reviews for an authoritative overview on each. A timeline of significant dates snakes through each chapter, marking releases, live performances, award shows and other Springsteen milestones. A concluding…

OMNIBUS PRESS ★★★★☆ The latest instalment in Simon Goddard’s scintillating series of yearly David Bowie check-ins finds its subject at a crossroads in both his career and personal life, torn between a still-swinging London with his wife Angie and the mean streets of New York with paramour Ava Cherry. Now midway through the 70s, this latest volume highlights Bowie’s tendency to shapeshift and his reluctance to become part of any scene. Having epitomised glam rock, the genre has become the defining force both musically and culturally and is bordering on self-parody when David seeks out his next destination. A performance by Barry White and The Three Degrees lures him towards the lush sound of Philadelphia, with its influence creeping into the transitional Diamond Dogs album. The facts and statistics of…