The all-encompassing Marc Almond compilation Hits and Pieces enters at number 7 on this week’s album chart, making it Marc’s biggest hit album under his own name, notwithstanding the fact that it includes several Soft Cell tracks (in fact it’s the highest position yet for an Almond compilation, charting one place higher than the similarly themed Memorabilia in 1991). Further down Paul Weller enters at 44 with his Jawbone soundtrack and Marti Pellow’s solo album Mysterious is new at 54. On the physical singles chart David Bowie’s No Plan EP climbs back to number 1, displacing Depeche Mode’s Where’s The Revolution to number 2.
That won’t worry the Mode too much as this week’s big release is their brand new album Spirit on CD, deluxe double CD, download or spread over three sides of vinyl with etched artwork on side four. Lloyd Cole releases a solo box set In New York: Collected Recordings 1988-1996 while Madness release a digital EP of Leo Zero remixes of (Don’t Let Them Catch You) Crying, one of the standout tracks on their recent Can’t Touch Us Now album. Steve Winwood’s Back in the High Life (1986) and Roll With It (1988) get vinyl reissues, as does Men At Work’s début Business as Usual, while Girlschool’s first three albums Demolition (1980), Hit and Run (1981) and Screaming Blue Murder (1982) are reissued on CD. Finally, in budget compilation corner 12 Inch Dance: 80s Remix spreads thirty random 12″ mixes over 3 CDs.
