Much gnashing of teeth in the Metallica household this week as Hardwired… To Self-Destruct enters the chart at number 2, kept off the top by the might of Little Mix. The UB40 splinter group featuring Ali, Astro & Mickey enter at 17 with Unplugged as Rick Astley‘s 50 climbs back up to 19 after a high profile TV appearance last week. Donna Summer‘s The Ultimate Collection débuts at 30 while the Human League‘s A Very British Synthesizer Group arrives at a disappointing number 90.
With just a month to go we’re in full Christmas release mode this week, headed inevitably by Cliff Richard‘s new single It’s Better To Dream (Christmas Mix) and a new Snow Queen Edition of Kylie Minogue‘s Kylie Christmas, now bolstered to a whopping 22 tracks (Kylie’s 2015 live Christmas show at the Royal Albert Hall is also available to download on iTunes). Prince‘s first posthumous compilation 4Ever includes a stack of hits plus one of the millions of unreleased tracks from his vault, while Kate Bush releases Before The Dawn, a triple live album from her London shows in 2014. Also captured in concert are Heart whose Live at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra is out on CD, DVD and Blu-ray. Alison Moyet‘s first four albums Alf, Raindancing, Hoodoo and Essex are released as deluxe editions, while Yazz‘s 1988 début Wanted is expanded to three discs with an indecent amount of bonus tracks and remixes (look out for our review coming soon). Finally this week, over in compilation corner The Eighties Album is a 3CD grab-bag of sixty generic ’80s hits in a sleeve designed to look a bit like the Human League’s Dare. There are no Human League tracks on it.
