Chart Watch
How soon we forget. After having six songs in the singles chart last week, Prince‘s only appearance this week is Purple Rain, which falls a spectacular 82 places from last week’s number 6 to this week’s number 88. The late Mr Nelson features more strongly on the album listings, with The Very Best of Prince at 3, Purple Rain at 11, Ultimate Prince at 24, The Hits 1 and The Hits 2 reappearing individually at 32 and 52 respectively, and Lovesexy bringing up the rear (as it were) at 82. Elsewhere, Billy Ocean‘s combined best-of and covers set Here You Are débuts at 4, while an older, cheaper compilation The Real Billy Ocean enters at 59.
New Releases
More Prince shenanigans as his final album HITnRUN Phase Two finally gets a proper CD release. Cyndi Lauper releases an album of country covers Detour, Kool & The Gang‘s 1984 album Emergency gets the 2CD deluxe treatment with added remixes, and Divine‘s musical career is celebrated with the double CD Shoot Your Shot – the Divine Anthology. Finally, BBC Radio 2’s Sounds of the ’80s show gets a second tie-in compilation of freshly-minted covers of ’80s songs, including the Manic Street Preachers having a go at (Feels Like) Heaven, Seal taking on Owner of a Lonely Heart and The Waterboys doing – yes – Purple Rain.
