Pet Shop Boys new single ‘Dancing Star’ has been released digitally today, and you can listen to it below. The song was “inspired by the life of Rudolf Nureyev, the ballet dancer who defected from the Soviet Union and became a global star”.
A 6-track CD single of ‘Dancing Star’, featuring two remixes of the song, will be released on 3 May and a Dolby Atmos and 96/24 hi-res stereo version is featured on the blu-ray audio of Nonetheless, along with the nine other album tracks. This is released on 26 April and can be ordered via the SDE shop using this link or the pre-order buttons below.
What do you think of ‘Dancing Star’? Leave your feedback in the comments.
Watch as SDEtv unboxes the ABBAWaterloo seven-inch box as well as looking at the 2LP half-speed master and the special Waterloo 10-inch single. All formats are released on 5 April 2024.
Some of the ABC blu-rays – with minor packaging imperfections – are now available at the SDE shop at the original price of £23. ONE copy per customer, please…
The Rolling Stones/Hackney Diamonds CD+blu-rayCD+Blu-ray
GIVEAWAY price for this fantastic version of the excellent Future Past album which contains 15 tracks including all the extra tracks from the deluxe CD plus Duran Duran’s cover of Bowie’s ‘Five Years’ (which prior to this was only available on the Japanese CD version of this album). This is a gatefold with RED and GREEN vinyl records and TWO excellent booklets (‘Future’ and ‘Past’).
Warrior Rock: Toyah on Tour was the second live album by the band Toyah. It was originally released in November 1982 by Safari Records and is the next release in Cherry Red’s comprehensive reissue campaign.
The 15-track double album featured material recorded on 17 and 18 July 1982 at Hammersmith Odeon at the end of The Changeling UK tour. A new 3CD set (compiled by Craig Astley and Joel Bogen) sees the album remastered and expanded to 41 tracks featuring 26 previously unreleased bonus tracks, with a total of 19 different songs from 11 gigs, at nine different locations!
These means that for the first time all four sides of the original vinyl live album are included on CD – unabridged and uncut. The first CD offers 12 of the 15 tracks while CD 2 starts with the last three songs from the concert. After that follows ‘Street Creature’ a mixed and mastered outtake from Hammersmith, soundcheck recordings, and rehearsals from Brixton Fair Deal (now known as Brixton Academy).
The third CD offers an alternate version of the Warriors Rock album by cherrypicking 14 songs from recordings at concerts in Newcastle, Bristol, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham, London and Brighton.
As well as the 3CD set, there’s a 2LP green vinyl edition that features the original release, remastered. Talking of which, Nick Watson at Fluid Mastering has remastered the package from the original master tapes and archive sources, overseen by Joel Bogen.
Warrior Rock: Toyah On Tour will be reissued on 17 May 2024 via Cherry Red.
Now That’s What I Call Music are continuing with reissuing the original compilations on CD and this week sees Now 17 reissued. This features 29 hits, three less than the original. The missing tracks are Beats International’s ‘Dub Be Good to Me’, Phil Collins’ ‘I Wish It Would Rain Down’ and Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy The Silence’.
Vampire Weekend / Only God Was Above Us (new album)
Vampire Weekend release their fifth studio album and first in five years. Frontman Ezra Koenig is surely asking for trouble by calling it their “Dark Side of the Moon meets Paul’s Boutique”, but we shall see!
Talk, the 1994 studio album released by progressive rock band Yes, is being reissued across three physical formats in May, including as a 4CD deluxe box set.
The album followed a troubled and confusing period for Yes (and fans!) with all sorts of shenanigans after 1987’s Big Generator, including the departure of lead singer Jon Anderson, the formation of Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (who released one album in June 1989) and then the Union album (1991) and tour which was a fusion of two groups (Yes and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe).
From all this, a new Yes emerged: Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Alan White & Rick Wakeman. Due to managerial reasons, Wakeman could not participate, so enter Tony Kaye on keyboards once more and the commercially successful 90125 line up was back together!
Talk 4CD box set (click image to enlarge)
The writing and recording saw Trevor Rabin and Jon Anderson work together closely, mainly in Rabin’s home studio in Hollywood, California using, at the time, cutting edge digital technology with a number of Apple Mac computers linked together running an early Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) called ‘Digital Performer’. This setup captured live performances from the band and the editing and mixing was done digitally. In its unedited form, Talk took up 34GB of memory, which gives you a feel for the limitations of the technology when compared to today!
The whole enterprise was bankrolled by Victory Music and as Tin Machine II fans may recall, they went bust which likely impacted the fortunes of Talk when it was eventually released in March 1994 (it reached #20 in the UK and #33 in America).
This 30th anniversary reissue comes as a 4CD deluxe box set with bonus studio material and a previously unreleased live show from New York. There’s also a booklet with a new interview with the principal players by Prog magazine editor, Jerry Ewing.
The album is finally back in print on vinyl, with a 2LP set is pressed on white vinyl and featuring ‘The Calling (Special Version)’ as a bonus track. An album-only single CD is also available.
Talk will be reissued on 24 May 2024 via Spirit of Unicorn Music.
Falco’s 1984 album Junge Roemer will be reissued next month for its 40th anniversary.
Junge Roemer was Falco’s second album and the one before international success beckoned with Falco 3‘s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’. However the title track was a top 10 hit in Austria consolidating his success there after his debut Einzelhaft which contained the chart-topping ‘Der Kommissar’.
The reissue is available as a 2CD set, a double vinyl (which comes in a lift-off lid box) and a cassette. All formats have bonus tracks, with the CD offering a comprehensive collection of remixes of the album’s title track (including those by DJ John Luongo), along with some live selections and an interview with Falco by the music journalist Ingeborg Schober (in German). The 2LP vinyl mirrors these bonus tracks on its second LP, but omits the interview and the cassette includes most of the bonus content as well (no interview and the 7″ edit of ‘Junge Roemer’ is dropped).
The album was remastered by Robert Ponger, who originally produced it back in 1984 and there’s new sleeve notes by Michael Rager and full lyrics to the songs in the booklet.
Junge Roemer will be reissued on 19 April 2024 via Sony Austria.
Blu-ray with Atmos, 5.1 & hi-res stereo • 2,500 units • Quick Pre-order
Keane’s debut Hopes and Fears will be issued as an SDE-exclusive blu-ray in May and is #21 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series.
The 2004 album features three UK top 10 singles in ‘Somewhere Only We Know’, ‘Everybody’s Changing’ and ‘Bedshaped’ and was a massive success. It has since gone on to sell more than 2.7m copies in the UK alone, a million copies in America and 6m worldwide.
The SDE blu-ray features a brand new Dolby Atmos Mix by David Kosten (David actually produced Keane’s last studio album Cause and Effect, and created the Atmos Mixes for Tubular Bells and No Parlez) as well as a new 5.1 mix and a 96/24 stereo mix.
I’ve mixed the whole album in Dolby Atmos, going back to the original multi-track parts to recreate the complex and multi-layered productions. It’s such an emotionally direct and deceptively simple sounding set of recordings – who knew that there were two dozen or more keyboard parts on many of the songs – synths, CP70, acoustic and electric pianos, pianettes, etc – all lovingly crafted and blended together with ridiculously fine vocals and drums”
David Kosten
Keane’s Hopes and Fears is #21 in the ongoing SDE Surround Series
Additionally, the SDE-exclusive blu-ray audio features a bonus track, the ‘lost’ song ‘Love Actually’, which was written and recorded while Keane were an unsigned band with a view to persuading Richard Curtis to use it in his 2003 romantic comedy (the band’s friend and manager Adam was working for the producer of the film). Sadly, the song was never used, with Richard Curtis recently commenting that “Everyone makes mistakes… I thought it was beautiful. I tried really hard to put it in the film – but in the end it was a little melancholy and, dare I say, a bit DEEP for the film I’d made”.
‘Love Actually’, is included in all three audio streams: Atmos, 5.1 and hi-res stereo. The region-free blu-ray audio will ship with a free SDE Surround Series slipcase.
The Hopes and Fears SDE-exclusive blu-ray will be limited to 2,500 units worldwide and will be released on 10 May 2024, alongside the other physical formats. It is only available via the SDE shop and can be pre-ordered using this link or the buttons below.
SDE has also secured some of the limited ‘galaxy’ coloured vinyl edition and the 3CD deluxe with unreleased demos and rarities. Various cost-saving bundles are available!
Tracklisting
Hopes and Fears Keane/20th anniversary
Hopes and Fears in Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD 5.1 Surround (48/24) and 96/24 hi-res stereo
Somewhere Only We Know
Bend And Break
We Might As Well Be Strangers
Everybody’s Changing
Your Eyes Open
She Has No Time
Can’t Stop Now
Sunshine
This Is The Last Time
On a Day Like Today
Untitled 1
Bedshaped
Bonus track in Dolby Atmos, DTS-HD 5.1 Surround (48/24) and 96/24 hi-res stereo
Love Actually
CD 1: ORIGINAL ALBUM REMASTERED
SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW
BEND AND BREAK
WE MIGHT AS WELL BE STRANGERS
EVERYBODY’S CHANGING
YOUR EYES OPEN
SHE HAS NO TIME
CAN’T STOP NOW
SUNSHINE
THIS IS THE LAST TIME
ON A DAY LIKE TODAY
UNTITLED 1
BEDSHAPED
CD 2: B-SIDES AND RARITIES
SNOWED UNDER
FLY TO ME
SOMETHING IN ME WAS DYING
SHE OPENS HER EYES
TO THE END OF THE EARTH
THE WAY YOU WANT IT
ALLEMANDE
WALNUT TREE
LOVE ACTUALLY
WONDERFUL RIVER
MORE MATEY
GET AWAY FROM YOURSELF
CD3: DEMOS
SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW (TIM DEMO, SEPTEMBER 2002)
SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW (DEMO, DECEMBER 2002)
BEND AND BREAK (DEMO, APRIL 2002)
WE MIGHT AS WELL BE STRANGERS (TIM DEMO, SEPTEMBER 2003)
Deep Purple’s 1972 album Machine Head is reissued as a 3CD+Blu-ray+LP super deluxe edition. SDE interview with Ian Gillan is incoming, but for now, check out the SDEtv unboxing video.
The next in the series of David Bowie CD-based deluxe sets will be called Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! and charts Bowie’s journey from February 1971 through to the creation of Ziggy Stardust and the recording of 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars album.
The 5CD+blu-ray set features demos, BBC radio sessions, singles, live tracks, outtakes and more and offers 29 unreleased tracks. Unreleased highlights include an alternative version of ‘Lady Stardust’, an unheard version of ‘Shadow Man’ and an up-tempo take of The Who’s ‘I Can’t Explain’, which Bowie would later slow down for the Pin Ups album.
The blu-ray includes the 2003 5.1 mix, a 96/24 stereo version, Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth) (which is being issued on vinyl for Record Store Day) along with a selection of singles and outtakes.
The 5CD+blu-ray deluxe of Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! (click image to enlarge)
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! also contains two books. The first, an extensive 112-page tome with detailed sleeve notes, memorabilia, contemporary reviews and articles, rare photographs from Barrie Wentzel, Michael Putland, Mick Rock, Sukita and Alec Byrne, as well as new notes and interviews with Ken Scott, Mark Carr Pritchett and David’s plugger from the time, Anya Wilson. Accompanying the main book is a 36-page compiled reproduction of David’s personal Ziggy Stardust era notebooks.
There’s also a single LP black vinyl version of Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! that has been mastered at half-speed and features 14 alternates/session tracks. These are all on the 5CD+blu-ray version, in case you are wondering.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! will be released on 14 June 2024, via Parlophone.
NOW Yearbook 1974is available in the usual formats with deluxe casebound book and standard 4CD editions and a 3LP coloured vinyl package, which this time around is green. The CD sets offer 82 tracks whereas the vinyl delivers 48.
1974 was a great year, mixing up classic rock (Queen, Lennon, McCartney, Elton John, Bachman-Turner Overdrive) with glam rock (The Sweet, Slade, Mud), teen pop (Bay City Rollers, David Essex), retro-pop (Showaddywaddy and Alvin Stardust), soft rock (Andy Kim, Ace and The Hollies) and even the odd novelty (The Wombles and ‘Kung Fu Fighting’!).
Deluxe casebound book version of NOW Yearbook 1974
Mike Oldfield’s ‘Theme From Tubular Bells’ makes an appearance, as does Leo Sayer’s excellent UK No 2 hit ‘The Show Must Go On’ along with the transatlantic top 10 ‘Long Tall Glasses’, while 10cc’s ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’ and Sparks’ ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both of Us’ deliver some cool, quirky art-rock.
Soul selections include songs fro Barry White, Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and The Stylistics while Bryan Ferry appears both as part of Roxy Music and as a solo artist. Mud’s ‘Lonely This Christmas’ appropriately ends CD 4, since it was the Christmas number one in 1974.
The second single off the Pet Shop Boys forthcoming album Nonetheless will be ‘Dancing Star’, and as with ‘Loneliness’ there will be a CD single available.
The physical product is rather more generous this time around with a total of six tracks: two previously unreleased non-album tracks and three remixes, one of ‘Party in the Blitz’ (a Loneliness bonus track) and two of ‘Dancing Star’.
‘Dancing Star’ comes in a gatefold card sleeve and will be released on 3 May 2024, via Parlophone. The blu-ray audio of Nonetheless featuring a Dolby Atmos Mix of ‘Dancing Star’, along with the rest of the album, can be pre-ordered via the SDE shop.
Marc Almond will release I’m Not Anyone, a new album of cover versions, in July.
Always adept at taking a song and making it his own, Almond has already make his Marc (sorry) with classic covers from ‘Tainted Love’ to ‘The Days Of Pearly Spencer’, from ‘Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart’ to ‘Jacky’.
For his latest solo outing ‘I’m Not Anyone’ Marc offers interpretations of gems from the likes of Don McLean, King Crimson, Paul Anka, Colin Blunstone and Mahalia Jackson.
As Marc says of I’m Not Anyone: “There is an underlying spirituality to this record, a thread of mystery and wonder, and sweetness. The elemental references nod to my interest in all things Druid and Pagan, that spectrum between them, a closeness to the earth, to living things. I find comfort in the living world, in trees and animals, away from the insanity that engulfs and threatens us.”
The formats are 140g black vinyl and CD, but Marc’s artist shop offers bundles with signed prints and pre-sale ticket access to Almonds upcoming tour. By the way, note the relatively cheap prices, below! It seems that record labels can price things competitively, when it suits them.
I’m Not Anyone will be released on BMG on 12 July 2024 via BMG.
Due to incredible demand, and at the request of fans who were caught out with the speed in which it sold out in January, we are making a further 500 copies of the SDE-exclusive Mark KnopflerOne Deep River blu-ray available.
Issued on his own British Grove label via EMI, One Deep River features 12 elegant new Knopfler songs, with his warm Geordie vocal tone, his poetic storytelling lyrics and deft, richly melodic guitar playing are all present and correct and as dazzling as ever.
The SDE-exclusive blu-ray is only available via the SDE shop and features the album plus five bonus tracks. All 17 tracks are mixed in immersive Dolby Atmos and available in the highest resolution stereo: 192 kHz / 24 bit. Neither audio streams are available anywhere else on a physical product.
One Deep River will be released on 12 April 2024 via British Grove/EMI. There’s a chance this further quantity will ship a little later than release date, but I’m told if this does happen, we’re talking days, not weeks.
Pre-order via the SDE shop using this link or the button below.
SDE is delighted to have secured a great exclusive. The recent-ish Gentle Giantvinyl box set, called Front Row Center (US Dates 1976-1980) is available to order via the SDE shop with a print of the cover art SIGNED & numbered by artist Bob Venables!
This is a limited edition of just 100 and the massive 10LP box set that the print accompanies, celebrates four classic years of Gentle Giant touring throughout the USA! It comprises two 3LP sets (Hempstead, New York on 13 July 1976 and 16 Nov 1977) and two 2LP sets (Chester, Pennsylvania 18 Nov, 1977 and Atlanta, Georgia 29 May 1980)
The Front Row Center 10LP vinyl box set (click image to enlarge)
In addition to the recordings, the set will come with a 60 page book written by GG authority Alan Kinsman concentrating on their live experiences and memorabilia. The set will also include a numbered Limited Edition certificate.
The Front Row Center (US Dates 1976-1980) vinyl box with this exclusive signed print is available now via the SDE shop. Use this link or the button below to place your order.
Cover print signed and numbered by artist Bob Venables (100-only)
Tracklisting
Front Row CenterGentle Giant/
HEMPSTEAD, NY – CALDERONE CONCERT HALL – JULY 13, 1976 (Broadcast on WLIR)
SIDE A
Intro/Just The Same 7:40
Proclamation/Valedictory 6:19
SIDE B
On Reflection 5:54
Interview 7:53
SIDE C
The Runaway/Experience 10:37
So Sincere 11:14
SIDE D
Excerpts From Octopus 17:42
SIDE E
Give It Back 5:26
Timing 13:34
SIDE F
Free Hand 7:36
HEMPSTEAD, NY – CALDERONE CONCERT HALL – NOVEMBER 16, 1977 – 3LP
SIDE A
Two Weeks In Spain 2:58
Free Hand 6:46
SIDE B
On Reflection 7:12
I’m Turning Around 4:10
SIDE C
Just The Same/Playing The Game 10:11
Memories Of Old Days 7:27
SIDE D
Betcha Thought We Couldn’t Do It 6:27
Funny Ways 7:59
SIDE E
The Face 16:13
For Nobody 4:31
SIDE F
Excerpts From Octopus 17:34
Mountain Time 1:36
CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA – WIDENER COLLEGE – NOVEMBER 18, 1977 – 2LP
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)
