Absolute scenes on the singles chart as the remix of Bob Marley‘s Is This Love leaps nineteen places to number 20 after seven weeks pootling around in the shallow end. Conversely Legend drops a place to number 6 on the album chart but is still the highest placed LP by an ’80s act, just ahead of Rick Astley‘s 50 which rallies to number 7. De La Soul‘s And The Anonymous Nobody enters at 16 ahead of New Model Army‘s Winter at 25 (their biggest hit album since The Love of Hopeless Causes in 1993).
This week’s big wallet emptying release is Messenger Of The Gods: The Singles Collection celebrating Freddie Mercury‘s 70th birthday with a box of coloured 7″s or a more affordable double CD (see our review here). The Wedding Present release their new set Going, Going… while Twisted Sister‘s The Best of the Atlantic Years mops up the cream of their mid-’80s output and the Thompson Twins‘ Into The Gap receives a double vinyl reissue, including some (but not all) of the cassette exclusive remixes on the second LP. In compilations, a new series of Top of the Pops CDs covers the show’s entire run from 1964 to 2006 in instalments of roughly five years, including 3CD sets for 1980-1984 and 1985-1989. There’s also a new compilation of 12″ mixes 80s Remixed & Extended, featuring the usual mix of the predictable (Rick Astley, Wham!, Thompson Twins) along with a few curve balls (Adam Ant, Malcolm McLaren & the Bootzilla Orchestra, Spear of Destiny).
