Van Halen The Studio Albums 1978-1984' - new box set

Box of six albums: £23.81

Buy on Amazon

Look, I’m not going to tell you if the music is any good. You’ve had about thirty years to make up your mind about Van Halen. If you are a dedicated fan, you’ll already have these discs. If (like me) you know their singles but are less familiar with the albums, this set may be just the thing to help your rock your way through the bleak, cold days of February and March…

So what do you get? The set comprises Van Halen’s first six albums. Each disc is contained in a card sleeve showing the original album cover, and these are all packed inside a sturdy cardboard box. The downside of reproducing the album covers in CD format is that the credits on the sleeves are printed in such tiny characters that they are almost unreadable – this is especially so on the sleeve of Van Halen II where the tiny text is printed in an almost illegible light pink over dark blue!

The discs all contain the original track listings and there are no extras: no alternative or extended tracks and no additional goodies in the box such as booklets or photos. What you get is just the plain vanilla editions of the six albums, exactly as they were originally released.

The albums are: Van Halen, Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning, Diver Down and 1984. These are all from what many fans regard the ‘classic’ period when the band was fronted by Dave Lee Roth. This set ends with Dave Lee Roth’s  final album before he was replaced by Sammy Hagar. There are lots of the band’s most popular songs here – including several songs from the first five albums that were chart hits in America and Canada – such as ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’, ‘Dancing In The Street’ and ‘You Really Got Me’. However, it wasn’t until the release of the sixth album, ‘1984’, that Van Halen really made a big impression on the UK singles charts. That album contain several international hits ‘Panama’ and ‘Hot For Teacher’. But undoubtedly their biggest and, to this day, their most memorable hit was ‘Jump’. And if you need any reminder of that, here it is…

OMD, Enola Gay and a new album

"I was always uneasy about the fact that Enola Gay was a bright, perky pop song about a nuclear holocaust, but it was insanely catchy..." says Paul Humphreys, of the OMD hit, Enola Gay.

"The subject matter caused consternation within the band," according to Andy McCluskey, "Our manager even threatened to resign if we released it as a single. I researched the subject in the library; it's not the way most people write songs – but couched the lyric in metaphor and emotive language. I thought the line "Is mother proud of little boy today?" was so terribly clever, because it had several meanings. It referenced the fact that the plane was named after the pilot's mother, and the bomb was codenamed "little boy" – while also asking whether a mother would be proud of what her son was doing. I was ambivalent about this: would you fly a plane to kill all those people because you thought you were going to save even more?"

For more, see The Guardian newspaper. OMD's new album, English Electric, is due for release on the 8th of April and their tour starts later the same month.

Meanwhile, here's that song...

Fairytale of New York - 25 Years On

It's as much a part of Christmas as, well, Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody. Yes, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's recording of Fairytale of New York is once again released just in time for the Festive Season. It was first released in December 1987 and has been popping back into the charts on a regular basis ever since. Now, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, the single has been reissued in digital form on iTunes, as a CD and, for nostalgia freaks, on a good old-fashioned vinyl single. The lovely PR people sent me a copy of the CD and vinyl though, sadly, it has been many years since I had an suitable equipment to play discs of the black plastic variety.

Anyway, just to get you into the Christmas spirit, here's the video...

Adam Ant’s new single and video

'Cool Zombie' is Adam’s first new single in 17 years. It will be released on the 21st January. But here’s an advance look at the video. This apparently shows Adam performing at a post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world saloon bar (actually Hoxton Hall, East London). The full video will exclusively be premièred on November 30th - when Adam Ant plays the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire.

Flexipop! on Facebook

Flexipop! the greatest pop magazine of the 1980s, now has its own Facebook page. If you remember the flexi-disks, were a fan of Trunkie The Toilet or generally have fond memories of the magazine that proudly offered "pure pulp for pinheads" and "cheap sleaze for retards", come and join us! http://www.facebook.com/Flexipopmag

Duran, Yazoo and Hazell - new collections

CD collections of 80s music seem to be released almost daily these days. So I wasn't overly excityed when I heard about a batcch of double-CD colections of Yazoo, Hazell Deane and Duran Duran. In fact, having now received some review copies, I have to say that these are definitely better than most.

All the major hits are there. The Hazell Dean set has Whatever I Do, Searchin' (I Gotta Find A Man) and Who's Leaving Who? - and the 2nd disk in the setn has various mega-mixes and extended versions. The Yazoo set has Only You, Situation, Don't Go and Nobody's Diary plus a batch of less known songs and some extended mixes. But, in my opinion, the best of the bunch is the Duran Duran set. There are just so many top songs here - Planet Earth, Girls On Film, My Own Way, Hungry Like The Wolf, Careless Memories,Wild Boys, Save A Prayer... they just keep on coming.

Anyway, a nice batch of records for 80s fans. And cheap at about £5 per two-disk set. If you need to replace those scratched old albums, these could be the answer....

Full track listings can be found here...

Duran Duran: The Biggest and the Best http://www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=6161

Yazoo: The Collection http://www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=6182

Evergreen: The Very Best Of Hazell Dean http://www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductID=6179

Spandau Ballet, Clare Grogan and 'True'

Today's Guardian reveals the inside story of the Spandau Ballet hit and Gary Kemp's unrequited love for the Altered Images singer: How we made: Gary Kemp and Steve Norman on True