Now very much in the twilight of their career, Status Quo enter the chart at number 7 with their latest acoustic set Aquostic II – That’s a Fact! just behind Phil Collins‘ The Singles which drops from 2 to 6. The promise of unreleased David Bowie songs helps the original cast recording of Lazarus to number 10 (even though the new Bowie tracks aren’t on Spotify) while the Pretenders enter at 40 with new album Alone. Strangest new entry of the week is Haçienda Classical, a curious mix of dance tracks as played at the legendary nightclub mixed with new interpretations by the Manchester Camerata Orchestra, which débuts at 14.
With impeccable timing, Dead Or Alive‘s Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI is out today, a wallet-emptying 19-disc box set including all the band’s eight studio albums (three of them released for the first time in the UK), a veritable plethora of B-sides, remixes and bonus tracks plus DVDs of promo videos, TV appearances and a live concert in Japan. The set also features a 4,000 word essay by the late Pete Burns, but it should be noted that fans are reporting numerous problems with the discs including the whole of Youthquake appearing in mono!
Trying to post this on @sdedition for last hour unsuccessfully in response to all the cock-ups on #DeadOrAlive boxset from @DemonMusicGroup! pic.twitter.com/KQuLIOineR
— Anfunny™ (@Anfunny) October 28, 2016
Challenging Dead Or Alive for completeness is Marc Almond‘s ten disc box set Trials of Eyeliner: Anthology 1979-2016 which includes a complete collection of his singles (with Soft Cell, Marc & the Mambas and solo), album tracks, B-sides, rarities and previously unreleased material. There are also deluxe 4CD sets of Public Image Ltd‘s Metal Box and Album released today. Elsewhere Not Just Anuvver Beano captures Chas & Dave in concert, celebrating the 40th anniversary of their début album One Fing n’ Anuvver on a CD and DVD set and of course Madness return with Can’t Touch Us Now, which I make their eleventh album (twelfth if you count The Madness when they were technically a different band and about their 26th if you count all the compilations that have come out over the years) – watch us unbox the special edition below.
