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Reissues
Angelo Badalamenti’s lush, dreamy film and TV soundtracks seduced many a leftfield musician and James’ Tim Booth was no exception. In thrall to the American composer’s succulent symphonies, he was…
Reissue Review: Heaven 17 – Bigger Than America
Having been defenestrated from Virgin Records in 1988, it took Heaven 17 eight years to get around to releasing their first independent album. By 1996, acid house and Madchester had…
Reissue Review: Electrical Language – Independent British Synth Pop 78-84
The history of UK electropop is so often reduced to a handful of big names and chart-straddling stars that rare compilations such as this 4CD set are a valuable counterbalance…
Reissue Review: A Certain Ratio – ACR:BOX
Fortieth anniversaries for post-punk outfits are coming thick and fast, with veteran Factory/Mute stalwarts A Certain Ratio the latest band to commemorate the end of their fourth decade. They do…
Reissue Review: Ash – ’94-’04: Singles Boxset
Supergrass were fond of proclaiming that they were everybody’s third-favourite Britpop band. By the same token, Ash probably rank fifth in most people’s affections. It would certainly be impossible to…
Reissue: Ian Brown – Unfinished Monkey Business
It’s possible rock history has witnessed a more precipitous decline than the drop-off in quality between The Stone Roses’ zeitgeist-setting self-titled 1989 debut and their dreadful 1994 follow-up, Second Coming.…
Reissue: Buzzcocks – A Different Kind Of Tension/Singles Going Steady
Buzzcocks’ simplicity was their genius that became their straitjacket. By their third album, 1979’s A Different Kind Of Tension, Pete Shelley was chafing against the restrictions of the punk-pop formula…
Reissue: Terry Hall – Laugh
The Specials, Fun Boy Three, The Colourfield, Terry, Blair & Anouchka, Vegas (with Dave Stewart)… throughout his career, Terry Hall has collected bands the way that kids nowadays collect Pokémon…
Reissue: Ian Dury & The Blockheads – Do It Yourself
As punk rock morphed into post-punk and new wave at the end of the 1970s, disco remained the shaping force of the Top 40. It was to attract some highly…
Reissue: Abba – Voulez-Vous
ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus is not just the co-songwriter of some of the most impeccable, glorious songs in pop history, he’s also always had a very astute sense of how they’ve…