William and Jim Reid release Glasgow Eyes, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s eighth studio album and their first in seven years. Nice exclusive splatter vinyl exclusive over at Rough Trade.
Cockney Rebel frontman Steve Harley has died of cancer, it has been announced.
London-born Harley formed formed Cockney Rebel in the early 1970s. The band – consisting of Harley, Jean-Paul Crocker, drummer Stuart Elliott, bassist Paul Jeffreys and guitarist Nick Jones – released two albums, The Human Menagerie (1973) and The Psychomodo (1974).
The band fell apart but was rebuilt by Harley as ‘Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel’ with Stuart Elliott the only musician remaining from the original line up. The first album under this new moniker was The Best Years of Our Lives (1975) which featured the song that Harley is best known for, the UK chart topper ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’. The band recorded just two more albums and had two further top 20 singles before calling it a day in 1977, when Harley embarked on a solo career. Steve would occasionally put together new line-ups of Cockney Rebel in later years for touring purposes, but 2005’s The Quality of Mercy was the only other studio album to bear the name.
Harley’s last brush with the UK top 10 was in 1986 with ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, a duet with Sarah Brightman. Harley was all set to play the role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical but after five months of rehearsal he was replaced by Michael Crawford.
In later years there were plenty of successful tours, well-received albums and reissues but the commercial success of the 1970s was never repeated.
I forgot to acknowledge this site’s birthday yesterday. On Friday, SDE was 13 years old – a rowdy teenager! Thanks, as always, go to YOU, the loyal and supportive readership. It has been an amazing journey and I’m glad you’ve been along for the ride. This site endures between we share the same passion for physical music. We care.
It has been gratifying in the last couple of years to step up and be able to exert some influence over the products that record labels deliver to audiences, notably with the SDE Surround Series. I’m particularly proud of this series because we are not just another retailer passively offering an exclusive coloured vinyl version of an album. The blu-rays really do offer something unique, and I do my best to influence the content and encourage labels and artist management to be generous! Sometimes the product and the Atmos Mixes simply would not exist if it were not for SDE (and by that I mean the combined enthusiasm of me, the editor, and you the audience). Paul Young is one such example.
Talking of Paul Young, the Dolby playback event on 7 March was fantastic. I know it’s difficult with a global audience, but I’d love to do more events like this where I get to meet more of you and we can come together and listen to music, celebrate music, talk about music. I will do my best to make this happen.
For now, thank you. SDE will do its best to not misbehave too much during its teenage years.
I’m still feeling really sad about Karl Wallinger. I was listening to a podcast interview where he was saying if you added up World Party’s global album sales it didn’t even reach 1m copies, which was quite a shocking statistic. I did point out on Tuesday that Goodbye Jumbo only spent one week in the UK top 40 album charts, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
I suppose it’s easy to view Karl as something of an underachiever, which sounds crazy given his creative achievements in those productive 10 or 15 years… but he didn’t release any new albums in almost the last quarter century of his life, which does feel like a waste, given his talents. There’s a song on the original version of the Dumbing Up album called ‘All The Love That’s Wasted’ and you could apply ‘talent’ to that line for Karl. I don’t mean that harshly, and of course we know health issues played their part.
The upside of creative freedom and not being constrained by the commercial focus of record labels is also a downside. Sometimes being able to do exactly what you want, or not do anything if you don’t want to, isn’t necessarily a positive. Karl surely paid the price for his disinterest in promoting or re-releasing his back catalogue, and combined with his inactivity – aside from occasional mini-tours on the other side of the world – World Party were effectively forgotten by the public at large. There was never even a ‘best of’ in the UK which seems crazy. I’m pretty sure Karl thought they were naff, but the odd compromise would have had wider benefits.
He did eventually see some sense with the vinyl reissue campaign of recent years, only to be slightly thwarted by COVID and production delays and the like.
Sadly, it’s not going to happen in Karl’s lifetime, but you hope that, when the time is right, his wonderful body of work will be celebrated and re-promoted and embraced by new generations of fans who may be unaware of all that great music. Excuse me, while I go and put on Egyptology...
“No Parlez seems far more like a product of the adventurous early 80s, rather than the smoother, slicker era that followed”
On 8 Feb 1986, No Parlez by Paul Young finally dropped out of the UK album charts for good. It had been a fixture there since July 1983: a 112 week run, the first 99 weeks unbroken. It had been certified quadruple platinum in Britain and was huge across Europe and beyond: gold or platinum in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Holland and Spain; triple platinum in Japan. It spawned three huge hit singles, two of them among 1983’s biggest sellers, a particularly impressive feat given the sheer number of imperishable classics released that year: ‘Billie Jean’ and ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Every Breath You Take’, ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’ and Spandau Ballet’s ‘True’. The first, a cover of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’, was so big it even made the session musician who played bass on it famous. It wasn’t the first single to feature the distinctive “sprrrroing” of Pino Palladino’s fretless bass, but, by his own admission, it was the track that, virtually overnight, turned him into the most in-demand bassist in pop, a position he holds to this day.
It’s worth underlining just how big No Parlez was, because 41 years on, it’s largely famous as the butt of a joke, an album that no one wants: “no charity shop is complete without its copy of No Parlez – we have three”, as a social media post from Oxfam in Huntingdon once put it. Paul Young’s career went into commercial decline not long after it left the charts: 1986’s Between Two Fires was another hit, but it only spent four weeks in the Top 40, as opposed to No Parlez’s 59. It wasn’t exactly a nosedive into obscurity – Young kept having hit singles well into the 90s, and there was a fleeting moment around the time of his Don Was-produced album The Crossing where it looked like he might belatedly take off in America – but it couldn’t help but look like a steep dip in the wake face of No Parlez’s success. And his work has never really been critically re-evaluated: the 80s revival has now been going for at least twice as long as the 80s did, rescuing umpteen artists from the dustbin of obscurity, but no one ever drops Young’s name as a latter-day influence. Reissues of No Parlez – a 25th anniversary 2CD edition in 2008, purple marbled 180g vinyl in 2019 – are greeted in some quarters with spluttering incomprehension. Who on earth is going to shell out for a reissue of an album you can pick up for a few quid in your local Marie Curie or Sue Ryder?
But clearly someone is, because the reissues keep appearing. The latest offers the original vinyl version on CD for the first time – the original CD and cassette replaced five tracks with their 12” remixes – alongside a second disc of b-sides, outtakes, seven-inch mixes and extended club versions, while a blu-ray features Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and instrumental mixes among its plethora of offerings. If you’re a die-hard fan, here’s more to add to your collection: if you want a luxuriously-appointed opportunity to reassess No Parlez, here’s your chance.
And No Parlez is an album that could use reassessing. It’s Paul Young’s historical lot to be viewed as part of a shift in British pop, away from the febrile post-punk experimentation of 1979-1982, which gave us 2 Tone, synth-pop and the New Romantics, to music that was less edgy and arty, more parent-friendly, more biddable. You can see why it happened – fresh-faced and suited-and-booted, Young was clearly made of more wholesome stuff than, say, Soft Cell – but it’s an assessment that doesn’t quite square with the contents of No Parlez. The first surprise is the credits. No Parlez is an album that features the work of both Jack Lee, of LA punk band The Nerves (‘Come Back And Stay’ was the second hit cover of a Lee song originally performed by The Nerves, the first being Blondie’s ‘Hanging On The Telephone’) and Dagmar Krause and Anthony Moore of prog-era experimentalists Slapp Happy and Henry Cow: Krause provides backing vocals, Moore wrote the title track (he released his own version a year later). You can construct an argument that, big-selling Motown cover or not, ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’ is a pretty experimental single. One of the reasons it made Pino Palladino famous was that it foregrounded his playing, shifting the bass from supporting to lead instrument, an idea borrowed from the 70s jazz-fusion work of Jaco Pastorious, not the most cravenly commercial of influences. But it’s the tracks that come inbetween the hits that underline No Parlez’s exploratory strangeness.
It’s tempting to say that, other than the beatless ballad ‘Broken Man’, they sound nothing like the songs that made Paul Young famous. As you might expect from a song written by Anthony Moore –who’d previously been dropped as a solo artist by Virgin Records for being too uncommercial – the title track is an equally curious listen: obliquely political lyrics, a chant-like chorus, a drum machine-driven coda that appears to have no melodic connection to the song that precedes it. You could theoretically have rendered ‘Tender Trap’ as straightforward mid-tempo soul, as Young and co-author Ian Kewley presumably would have done in their old band the Q-Tips: instead it’s decorated with off-key synthesizers, a spacey, echo-heavy production and a lengthy trombone solo, courtesy of Specials associate Rico. ‘Ku Ku Kurama’ is a weird cocktail of Bowie-esque vocals, courtesy of Young, and yelping, jabbering interjections from backing singers The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts: as with their contributions to Young’s version of ‘Love Of The Common People’ – which leaned towards the buoyant mood of Nicky Thomas’s 1970 reggae cover, rather than the song’s roots as a lachrymose country/singer-songwriter number – you wonder if they might not have been inspired by Kid Creole And The Coconuts, a band who shifted from hip critical cause celebre to mainstream success while No Parlez was being recorded.
With ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, Young just had the idea that it might be a malleable classic rather than a sacred text before anyone else
Alexis Petridis
And the cover of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, which caused a great deal of pearl-clutching at the time – how dare this pop artist besmirch the memory of Ian Curtis? etc – now seems oddly prescient. It might have been hallowed ground three years after Curtis’s suicide, but it’s subsequently become fair game for other artists – rendered as folk music by June Tabor, angsty emo-rock by Fall Out Boy, and into something that might accompany a New Orleans street parade by The Hot 8 Brass Band. Young just had the idea that it might be a malleable classic rather than a sacred text before anyone else: capable of supporting an impassioned blue-eyed soul vocal, some fairly abstract bursts of distorted guitar and a French language spoken-word section by Dagmar Krause.
It ends with ‘Sex’ – not a great song, but a perfect illustration of No Parlez’s freewheeling approach. There are sudden explosions of freeform piano and a hammering drum machine. The latter seems to have been inspired by the nascent hip-hop scene that had been brought to the UK’s attention at the end of 1982 with the release of Malcom Mclaren’s ‘Buffalo Gals’. The same thing also informs the 12” version of ‘Come Back And Stay’, which opened the original CD with a blast of densely-effected drum rolls, stammering samples and scratching. In fact, the 12” versions on CD 2 of this reissue transform the hits into something more akin to the rest of No Parlez: ‘Love Of The Common People’ is dubbed-out and more minimal than the familiar version, ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’ is more straightforward, but still unspools into ad-libbed vocals and improvised synth lines.
An album that pitches vintage soul songs next to covers of Joy Division, that variously nods to dub, cutting edge New York dance music, jazz-fusion and the avant-garde of 70s rock, No Parlez seems far more like a product of the adventurous early 80s, rather than the smoother, slicker era that followed. Listening to it in 2024, you’re struck by the sense that no record label who signed an artist like Paul Young today would let him make an album like No Parlez. Confronted with a pop artist who had a voice soulful enough to carry old Motown and Stax covers – as well as ‘Wherever I Lay My Hat’, there’s a version of Don Covay’s 1966 b-side ‘Iron Out The Rough Spots’ – they would automatically break out the post-Amy Winehouse retro- soul affectations keen to underline the singer’s authenticity, their links to an august musical tradition. The result would probably be fine, but it wouldn’t be as interesting or surprising as the music here. Contrary to its latter-day reputation as an album no one wants, No Parlez is an album more people in 2024 should hear. Whether you opt for this tricked out version – which chooses to ignore demos and live tracks for a complete survey of what Young actually released at the time – or simply head to your nearest charity shop is up to you: either way, you’re unlikely to regret it.
By Alexis Petridis
The 40th anniversary of No Parlez is released today as a 2CD set or on SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio with a plethora of mixes and versions, including a brand new Dolby Atmos Mix.
Tracklisting
No ParlezPaul Young/SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio
No Parlez: UK Vinyl First Pressing version with 3 bonus tracks (as below) in the following audio streams: 2024 Dolby Atmos Mix, 2024 5.1 Mix (48/24), 2024 New Stereo Mix (192/24), 2024 Dolby Atmos Instrumental Mix, 2024 5.1 Instrumental Mix (48/24), 2024 New Stereo Instrumental Mix (192/24)
Come Back and Stay 4:57
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 5:18
Ku Ku Kurama 4:19
No Parlez 4:57
Love of the Common People 4:56
Oh Women 3:35
Iron Out the Rough Spots 4:47
Broken Man 3:54
Tender Trap 4:32
Sex 4:49
Bonus tracks
Behind Your Smile 4.08 (B-side)
Yours 5.39 (B-side)
I’ve Been Lonely For So Long (No Parlez outtake) 3.39
No Parlez: UK Vinyl First Pressing version newly remastered with no peak limiting
Come Back and Stay – 4:57
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 5:18
Ku Ku Kurama – 4:19
No Parlez – 4:57
Love of the Common People – 4:56
Oh Women – 3:35
Iron Out the Rough Spots – 4:47
Broken Man – 3:54
Tender Trap – 4:32
Sex – 4:49
No Parlez: Original 1983 CD Master
Come Back and Stay 7:56 (scratch mix)
Love Will Tear Us Apart 5:00
Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) 6:01 (extended club mix)
Ku Ku Kurama 4:19
No Parlez 4:57
Behind Your Smile 4:08
Love of the Common People 5:51 (extended club mix)
Now That’s What I Call Music continue their year-by-year examination of extended mixes from the 1980s with another 4CD set representing ‘Part 2’ of 1982.
This package continues no fewer than 49 mixes of songs by some of the most innovative and famous artists of the decade, including Wham!, Duran Duran, Talk Talk, Soft Cell, Japan, Simple Minds, Heaven 17, The Associates, Thomas Dolby, Visage, ABC, Blondie, China Crisis and many more. Full tracklistings can be found below.
NOW 12″ 80s: 1982 Part 2 will be released on 12 April 2024.
Out today is a series of AC/DC coloured vinyl celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band. Watch as SDEtv unboxes the gold-coloured pressings along with a couple of exclusive editions.
Somewhat surprisingly, given that the previous blu-ray came out as recently as September 2022, Pink Floyd have annouced that a brand new Dolby Atmos Mix of their 1977 album Animals will be available on blu-ray audio in May.
James Guthrie has created the Dolby Atmos Mix which sits alongside the 5.1, new stereo mix (both from 2018) and the original stereo mix from 1977. This effectively makes the old blu-ray redundant.
Blu-ray with sticker (the other round thing) and postcard
Of course StormStudios are not going to pass up the opportunity to ‘re-imagine’ classic artwork, so the already reworked 2022 visuals of London’s Battersea Power Station (conceived by Roger Waters) with the pig has been re-created again with light projections, variations of which feature in the accompanying 16-page booklet. The blu-ray comes in a digipak and comes with a sticker and a postcard.
The Animals Dolby Atmos Mix will be released on blu-ray on 17 May 2024. This is available from the SDE shop, the home of blu-ray audio! So if you’d like to support SDE you can pre-order, using this link or the button below.
Procol Harum’sRobin Trower released his second solo album, Bridge of Sighs, in 1974 to critical and commercial acclaim. The album will be reissued as a 3CD+blu-ray deluxe edition which features a Dolby Atmos Mix amongst some impressive content.
The album features Trower on guitar with James Dewar (bass, vocals) and Reg Isidore (drums). Robin’s former bandmate Matthew Fisher produces with former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick taking on control room duties.
The 3CD+blu-ray deluxe set (click to enlarge)
The 3CD+blu-ray set features both a remastered version of the original mix of the album (CD 1), a brand new 2024 stereo remix of Bridge of Sighs which contains longer versions of the songs, since it was discovered during the remixing process that they had been edited back in the day, most likely to ensure the album fitted comfortably on vinyl. For example, ‘In This Place’ is 4.29 on the original album but 6.17 on the stereo remix, while ‘Little Bit of Sympathy’ is also almost two minutes longer. Every track is different in this way. Added to CD 2 is a very generous selection of outtakes and rarities, all previously unreleased, including rehearsals, early versions and the like.
The third CD offers live audio available in its entirety for the first time and newly remastered from the original tape transfers. The blu-ray includes a Dolby Atmos Mix (by Richard Whittaker), a 5.1 Mix, the remastered stereo version, the remixed stereo version, a slightly different selection of stereo outtakes (extra ones!), the live tracks in stereo and an exclusive instrumental stereo mix.
This set includes a 24-page booklet featuring liner notes by David Sinclair (no relation!), new interviews with Robin Trower and Matthew Fisher and more. A 2LP vinyl version is also available that includes the live tracks on LP 2.
Bridge of Sighs will be released on 17 May 2024, via Chrysalis. You can support SDE by pre-ordering the 3CD+blu-ray set via the SDE shop. Use this link or the button below.
Karl Wallinger the singer-songwriter who was best known for World Party, his almost-solo outfit, has died aged 66, it has been announced.
Wallinger first came to prominence as the touring keyboard player in The Waterboys although his role grew by the time of 1985’s This Is The Sea and Mike Scott has acknowledged his significant contribution in terms of arrangements and his skills as a multi-instrumentalist (Wallinger also co-wrote opener ‘Don’t Bang The Drum’).
Karl left during the This Is The Sea tour to pursue his own solo career (what would become World Party) and the first album Private Revolution was released in 1986. The second single from that long-player, ‘Ship of Fools’ was a significant success, especially in America where, remarkably, it reached No 27 in the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, the song underachieved, peaking frustratingly just short of the UK top 40 at No 42. Singles being within touching distance of commercial success but not quite getting there, would become a common theme during World Party’s 13 or 14 years of regular activity.
Neither ‘Put The Message in the Box’ or ‘Way Down Now’ – both superb pop songs – from World Party’s undoubted 1990 masterpiece Goodbye Jumbo were a hit, which seems unfathomable now, but Wallinger was probably just too far ahead of the curve with his fusion of sixties songwriting idealism and one-man-band recording techniques. Remember, this was all happening during the embers of PWL, Acid/House, Grunge and the ‘Baggy’ dance/rock scene. Even The Las album (issued six months after Goodbye Jumbo) only peaked at number 30 and neither ‘Timeless Melody’ or ‘There She Goes’ were a hit when first released, to reinforce this point. We’d have to wait three or four more years for Oasis to turn up before the public were seemingly ready for bands to channel The Beatles.
But Goodbye Jumbo is a truly wonderful album. I remember exactly where I bought my copy, in Cheapo Cheapo record shop in Soho, probably around 1991. I recall not knowing anything from it at the time but I must have vaguely read or heard something about World Party being quite good. Karl Wallinger could write brilliant tunes with great hooks and lyrics, but it was the sound and the production that made everything work so well. ‘Ain’t Gonna Come ‘Til I’m Ready’ is pure perfection; so many tiny sonic details placed, layered and mixed with precision and Karl sings beautifully with that Prince-like falsetto. He could build a song for days, weeks, months with that studio craftsmanship and then write an achingly simple tune like ‘Love Street’ or the piano ballad ‘Sweet Soul Dream’.
When Goodbye Jumbo entered the the UK album charts at No 41 in May 1990, the top 20 included Paula Abdul, Big Fun, Sonia, Phil Collins, Michael Bolton and the Inspiral Carpets. A week later the album moved up to No. 36 for its single week in the UK top 40, before disappearing. Almost a year later, Ensign (part of Chrysalis) issued ‘Thank You World’ as the third and final UK single but any hope that it might give the album a late boost was dashed by it’s failure to be any kind of a hit (it peaked at No 68).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9QW0CyU47U
In spring 1993, a couple of years after the Goodbye Jumbo campaign ended, World Party returned with their third album Bang! and, somewhat against the odds, it was a commercial success! This was all down to the first single, the brilliantly languid and lovely Is It Like Today?, which was a hit, offering the band national exposure on Top of the Pops.
I say it was a ‘hit’, ‘Is It Like Today?’ actually only got to No 19, but hey, so did ‘Losing My Religion’ two years earlier in 1991 and look how much that helped R.E.M.’sOut Of Time. World Party’s Bang! entered the UK album charts at No 2 and only Automatic For The People, R.E.M.’s follow-up to Out Of Time, denied them a number one album.
On reflection, the second single, the funk-rock of ‘Give It All Away’, was perhaps not the song to shoulder the responsibility of maintaining this hard won territory inside the actual pop charts and World Party were back to their old ways of peaking just outside the top 40. It was borderline criminal that the commercially catchy pop of ‘Sooner Or Later’ wasn’t the second single from Bang! and by the time the sunny ‘All I Gave’ was released, in the autumn of 1993, the moment was gone. This period was great in some ways because fans were rewarded with some fantastic CD 1 / CD 2 singles with a plethora of extra tracks, such as an extended version of ‘Give It All Away’ and the excellent ‘Basically’ (B-side to ‘Is It Like Today’).
The wait for the next album, Egyptology, seemed very long at the time, but was actually only four years. Nevertheless, the momentum had gone (Wallinger told me the label encouraged him to get back into the studio rather than tour on the back of the success of Bang!) and ironically having been ahead of the curve with Goodbye Jumbo, Karl had missed the best years of Britpop (1994-5) when World Party’s retro style of pop-rock would have probably been well received. ‘She’s The One’, which was famously a No 1 hit for Robbie Williams in 1999, features on Egyptology, but was only released as a promotional single and at the time with Chrysalis opting for ‘Beautiful Dream’ as the lead track from the album (issued on three different CD singles in the UK). That stalled at No 36 and no more singles were issued. Egyptology had its moments, but it always felt too long and while there was nothing fundamentally wrong with it, the magic was missing to a degree, and it was rather weighed down by solid, if not outstanding numbers.
What we now know as World Party’s last album, Dumbing Up, was released on Karl’s own Seaview label in October 2000. One single, ‘Here Comes The Future’, was put out to little fanfare. Not long after this, in early 2001, Wallinger suffered an aneurysm that left him unable to speak and it took almost half a decade for him to be well enough to make a return, albeit only on stage. The next decade featured a series of sporadic tours, normally in America, although World Party did support Steely Dan in Australia in 2007 (“we were like the naughty kids on their tour”). They played festivals, vineyards and the like and by all accounts had a very pleasant time of it!
Karl was always disinterested in reissues (“I don’t like it when you go to buy a CD and it’s got five other tracks at the end that are basically rubbish versions of other tracks on the album. I hate that” he told SDE in 2012), and even when he grudgingly approved the band’s one and only greatest hits compilation (2007’s Best in Show, not issued in the UK) he didn’t bother sweating over the tracklisting and just looked at the iTunes chart and picked the 13 most downloaded World Party songs (the reason seven tracks are from Goodbye Jumbo).
What Karl did approve, in 2012, which now seems like an amazing gift, was the release of Arkeology, a 70-track anthology (“it isn’t a box set” he insisted). This 5CD set contains no studio album tracks which illustrates just how prolific Karl was, even if he seemed reluctant to actually release anything (surely only Prince could perhaps have put together a similar collection). As well as old B-sides, live cuts and covers, Arkeology included what were new recordings at the time, songs like ‘Everybody’s Falling in Love’ and ‘Photograph’ (finished in 2011). In November 2012, World Party played their first UK show in 12 years at London’s Royal Albert Hall. I was there and it was beautiful.
SDE spoke to Karl at length around this time. He admitted he was “quite insular” and said “I have been locked away in a studio, I do have all the masters up there, and I am my own boss, but in the same way that this Arkeology project is so personal, back then it was always these record companies pulling you into this de-personalised zone. I’m much happier now, I’m able to do my own thing”.
He was a kind man. At end of our conversation (which was conducted on Skype) I asked if he might be able to sort me out with a copy of Arkeology for an SDE competition. He’d surely never heard of this fairly new blog called ‘Super Deluxe Edition’ and had no idea who I was, but on realising I lived in East London he said he would immediately take a copy he had in his home (at the time in North London, he later relocated to Hastings) and put it in a black cab and deliver it to me. When it turned up it came with the lovely handwritten note below, which I will always treasure. Rest in Peace, Karl Wallinger.
Karl’s handwritten note accompanied a copy of Arkeology
#17 in the SDE Surround Series is one of the most generous blu-rays in the series to date, with EIGHT audio streams of Paul Young’s best-selling 1983 album, including Atmos, 5.1, instrumental, new stereo, original mix remastered (with no peak limiting) and the original CD version! If you’re not into surround sound/immersive audio there’s also a SDE-exclusive 2CD edition as well!
Donna Summer / Japanese Singles Collection: Greatest Hits
This 2CD+DVD set contains 44 audio tracks and 17 videos.
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Donna Summer Japanese Singles Collection -Greatest Hits- [2SHM-CD + DVD]
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AC/DC / Coloured vinyl reissues
Back in Black and 10 other AC/DC albums are reissued this week for the band’s 50th anniversary and all are pressed on coloured vinyl and come with a unique insert and custom labels.
Paul Young in attendance, with other key contributors to the album
I was delighted to host a special Atmos playback at Dolby HQ in London on Thursday night with a group of selected guests including Paul Young, No Parlez producer Laurie Latham, guitarist Steve ‘Boltz’ Bolton and who created the immersive audio mix.
A selection of SDE readers were also present as we experienced David Kosten’s Atmos Mix in Dolby’s dedicated screening room, which has a capacity of around 65 people.
SDE’s Paul Sinclair welcomes guests to the No Parlez playback event
I spoke to David beforehand and then interviewed Paul and Laurie afterwards. Paul was stunned at the clarity and the separation present in the Atmos Mix, particularly enjoying the crystal clear backing vocals of Maz and Kim (aka ‘The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts’), while Laurie simply nodded in David’s direction and said “I don’t know how you did that”!
It was a family affair with my wife Anne present, along with daughter Esme who was keeping glasses filled and chatting to the various guests. Tim Young, the original mastering engineer for No Parlez was also there, along with various cohorts of Paul’s from back in the day. Michael Neidus, who has managed the reissue campaign for Demon Music was in also in attendance with a few colleagues.
Paul Sinclair talks to Paul Young and Laurie Latham after the playback
It was fantastic to meet some SDE readers and chat, and a few people took the opportunity to get a photo with Paul. The Q&As at this event were filmed so we’ll be uploading some clips to the SDE YouTube channel soon.
Don’t forget you can own this immersive mix and experience it in your own home! The No Parlez SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio is released next week (15 March) and is now available again via the SDE shop. As a reminder the blu-ray contains the following audio streams:
No Parlez 2024 Dolby Atmos Mix
No Parlez 2024 5.1 Mix (48/24)
No Parlez 2024 stereo mix (192/24 and 48/24)
No Parlez Instrumentals 2024 Dolby Atmos Mix
No Parlez Instrumentals 2024 5.1 Mix (48/24)
No Parlez Instrumentals 2024 stereo mix (192/24 and 48/24)
No Parlez 1983 mix remastered (96/24)
No Parlez 1983 CD version (48/24)
To order this limited edition No Parlez blu-ray audio, simply visit the SDE shop via this link or use the buttons below.
Attendees chatted and old friends caught up, prior to the playback
Billy Idol’s second studio album, 1983’s Rebel Yell, is being reissued for its 40th Anniversary. The album features the singles ‘Eyes Without a Face’, ‘Flesh for Fantasy’, ‘Catch My Fall’ and ‘Rebel Yell’.
There are two physical editions of this reissue, a 2CD set and a 2LP vinyl version. The former features 13 bonus tracks, including five that were on the 1999 expanded CD. The extra tracks include the rather good ‘Poolside Remix’ of Eyes Without A Face (a new remix was issued as a digital single in early 2021), the previously unreleased ‘Best Way Out of Here’ and a cover of ‘Love Don’t Live Hear Anymore’ (from the original sessions). Of the latter, Billy said “We found out Madonna was doing a version on her Like A Virgin album and we had a full compliment songs so we thought we’d leave it off the album”.
The 2LP vinyl edition drops five of these bonus tracks and therefore features eight selections on the bonus LP.
The Billy Idol shop is peddling a £357 “collectors record plaque” which apes the look of an official platinum or silver disc. This 100-limited edition will be viewed either as opportunistic tat of the highest order or rather cool, depending on your outlook. To be fair, it looks like there was some autographed coloured vinyl on the shop at some point, at a not unreasonable £40, but it must have sold out in the blink of an eye.
The Rebel Yell “collectors record plaque”. Opportunistic tat or rather cool? You decide.
To SDE, the Billy Idol reissue campaign continues to be feel rather half-hearted, with its basic jewel-case packaging and like the Billy Idol reissue of last year, this Rebel Yell 2CD set does not even comprehensively mop up the commercially released audio (edits, remixes) from the original era. Do you agree? Rate this release at the top of the page.
Rebel Yell is reissued on 26 April 2024, via UMe/Capitol.
Pet Shop Boys forthcoming album Nonetheless will be available on a special blu-ray edition which is now available to pre-order exclusively via the SDE shop.
The region-free blu-ray audio features a Dolby Atmos Mix and a Hi-Res Stereo Mix (96/24) of the album and also includes the official video for the first single, ‘Loneliness’, directed by Alasdair McLellan.
The SDE pre-order includes an exclusive slipcase and will be released on 26 April 2024, via Parlophone, along with the other physical formats. You can pre-order the blu-ray and the 2CD edition via the SDE shop using this link or the buttons below. The slipcased edition is limited to 3,000 units.
Nonetheless blu-ray in the slipcase
Tracklisting
NonethelessPet Shop Boys/Blu-ray Audio
Dolby Atmos Mix of Nonetheless
Loneliness
Feel
Why am I dancing?
New London boy
Dancing star
A new bohemia
The schlager hit parade
The secret of happiness
Bullet for Narcissus
Love is the law
96/24 stereo mix of Nonetheless
Loneliness
Feel
Why am I dancing?
New London boy
Dancing star
A new bohemia
The schlager hit parade
The secret of happiness
Bullet for Narcissus
Love is the law
Video to Loneliness (directed by Alasdair McLellan)
With the recently released deluxe edition effectively now sold out at the distributors, The Waterboys‘ celebration of their This Is The Sea album is being made available at a cheaper price and a less luxurious presentation.
You get the same six CDs which feature 95 tracs, 64 of them previously unreleased, but this time they are presented in card wallets which are housed in a clamshell box set. The massive 220 hardcover book is distilled to a 56-page, perfect bound booklet.
The new clamshell version of 1985
The new version is about £35 cheaper, so fans can argue which version presents the best value. The proper deluxe is limited to 3,000 units and you can check it out via the SDEtv unboxing video.
This clamshell box edition of 1985 will be released on 12 April 2024, via Chrysalis.
Unbelievable price for this massive Cat Stevens super deluxe edition that includes 5CDs, a vinyl LP, a 12-inch EP, a blu-ray, a 98-page hardcover book, and various posters and lyric sheets, stickers etc.
The Beach Boys/Sail on Sailor 1972 6CD set6CD deluxe
Mark Knopfler’s 2018 album in deluxe box set form. This includes the album as a 2LP set, a bonus LP with four additional tracks and then the same 16 tracks on deluxe CD. Also includes numbered print and guitar tab sheet music. This deal is via the SDE shop – very limited stock available.
Slightly underwhelming when first released, but for under £30 this deluxe of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals is a great buy. You get the 2018 stereo mixes on CD and vinyl and the 5.1 mixes (and hi-res stereo) on blu-ray or DVD.
Superb box featuring the three albums remastered (approved by LC) and a further three albums of B-sides, demos and rarities. This deal is via the SDE shop – limited stock available.
Def Leppard’s 1983 album Pyromania will be reissued in April across numerous physical editions.
The band’s third studio album was the first to feature guitarist Phil Collen (who had replaced Pete Willis) and launched the band into the rock stratosphere. ‘Photograph’ and ‘Rock of Ages’ were both top 20 singles in America (although the band would have to wait for Hysteria‘s ‘Animal’ to crack the UK top 40) and ‘Rock! Rock! (Till You Drop)’ established itself as a Leppard classic. Pyromania also reached No 2 in the US charts.
The ‘top of the range’ edition in what is nominally a 40th anniversary reissue is the 4CD+blu-ray box set. This features the album remastered, a disc of rarities (outtakes, demos, rough mixes), two live CDs (Live at Westfalen Halle, Germany and Live at the LA Forum) and a blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos Mix, a 5.1 mix, a new stereo mix, an instrumental version and five videos. The Atmos Mix has been “overseen by Giles Martin” and the 5.1 and stereo versions are all 48 kHz / 24 bit, in case you are wondering!
4CD+blu-ray Pyromania box set
Joe Elliott who has acted as executive producer on the set, the mastering has been done by the band’s long-serving sound engineers Ronan McHugh and Andy Pearce.
There’s also a 2CD version which features the remastered album and on the second disc a selection of rarities from CD 2 in the box and four live tracks from LA Forum. There’s also two black vinyl editions: one is a single half-speed mastered LP and the other is a 2LP set with 11 rough mixes on the second record (the first record in this set isn’t half-speed mastered).
Pyromania will be reissued on 26 April 2024, via UMC/Mercury.
Kirsty MacColl’s 1989 album is reissued as a half-speed mastered vinyl edition. Its follow-up, 1991’s Electric Landlady (featuring the hit ‘Walking Down Madison’) gets the same treatment.
Sony Music will release a Bruce Springsteen ‘Best Of’ next month with a collection of songs that span his 50-year recording career.
Available as a 2LP set or on a single CD, the 18-track selection starts at 1973’s Greeting from Asbury Park, NJ and ends with 2020’s Letter To You.
indie-exclusive ‘Atlantic Blue’ 2LP set
There’s no deluxe editions or anything expanded beyond those 18-tracks, although a digital release does offer a 31-track song offering. There is however a indie exclusive ‘Atlantic blue’ vinyl variant of the 2LP set. The cover photo was shot by Eric Meola during the Born To Run sessions, and there’s sleeve notes by Erik Flannigan.
Best Of Bruce Springsteen will be released on 19 April 2024, via Sony Music. SDE has a limited allocation of the indie Atlantic Blue vinyl over at the SDE shop. Pre-order via this link or use the button/widget below.
30 years after Portishead’s seminal debut Dummy, and over 20 years since her collaboration with Rustin Man (Talk Talk’s Paul Webb), Beth Gibbons is about to release her debut solo album, Lives Outgrown.
The album was produced by James Ford and Gibbons with additional production by Lee Harris (another Talk Talk connection, he was the drummer).
Described as “Beth’s most personal work to date”, the album is a result of a period of sustained reflection and change — “lots of goodbyes,” in Beth’s words. Floating on a Moment, the first song made available from Lives Outgrown, will give you a feel for the album, and you can listen below.
The album is available on deluxe CD, packaged in a hardcover ‘casebound’ book (but with no extra tracks) or a standard presentation (jewel case). There’s also a deluxe vinyl in addition to the standard version that ship with a 12-page scrapbook. Remarkably (refreshingly?) there appears to be no coloured vinyl variant!
Lives Outgrown will be released on 17 May 2024, via Domino.
Pete ‘Mixmaster’ Hammond has worked with some of Dead Or Alive’s later recordings for a throwback Hi-NRG remix project that sees him “completely re-plays and reworks” 11 tracks in the classic 80s sound.
The Pete Hammond Hi-NRG Remixes is being issued as a 2LP coloured vinyl set for Record Store Day, but the good news for non-RSD fans and CD aficionados is that this project is also being released as a 2CD set in deluxe gatefold seven-inch packaging.
These remixes are a retro take on those newer songs – how they might have sounded, if recorded and mixed in the 1980s. The album includes new remixes of ‘Hit And Run Lover’ and the 2000 remix of You Spin Me Round (Like A Record).
The Pete Hammond Hi-NRG Remixes will be released on 26 April 2024 via Edsel.
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Dead Or Alive
Dead Or Alive: The Pete Hammond Hi-Nrg Remixes - 2CD Deluxe Gatefold Packaging
