When did the Pet Shop Boys last have three albums in the chart at once? Probably not since 1987, when Actually joined Please and remix album Disco in the listings. This week they’ve done it again with new entries for the remastered, expanded editions of 1999’s Nightlife (#29), 2002’s Release (#30) and 2005’s Fundamental (#33). All three reached the top ten on their original release – as every one of their regular studio albums has done since their 1986 début – but when their first six albums were treated to a similar remastering and expansion process in 2001, only Actually registered on the chart, achieving a single week at number 99. It will be very interesting to see what happens when those editions are reissued again in a few weeks time as part of the ongoing PSB reissue campaign. Elsewhere on the album chart, the nucleus of The Beautiful South, Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott, just miss out on a number one as Crooked Calypso drops from #2 to #9, while The Fall score their twenty-fourth hit album as New Facts Emerge enters at #35.
This week’s big catalogue release is the 30th anniversary edition of Def Leppard’s UK breakthrough album Hysteria, available as a remastered single CD, double heavyweight vinyl, deluxe 3CD edition and super deluxe box set including five CDs, two DVDs and four books. Also revisiting their past are Blancmange who release 3CD deluxe editions of Happy Families, Mange Tout and Believe You Me, or you can buy the whole lot slipcased together as a 9CD set The Blanc Tapes. UB40′s Present Arms is expanded to a deluxe edition, teaming it with remix album Present Arms In Dub plus BBC radio session tracks and a live show from 1981, while Eric B & Rakim’s Paid In Full is reissued on “money green” vinyl. The Status Quo catalogue mining continues with The Vinyl Singles Collection 1984-1989 containing eight 7″ singles including the first official release of the cancelled 1985 single Naughty Girl. Amidst all the reissues there is some new music, as Nick Heyward returns with Woodland Echoes, his first solo album in nearly two decades.
