Tina’s simply the best and Bryan Ferry and Bob Marley are Christmas crackers, too: ADRIAN THRILLS rounds up the reissues, box sets and greatest hits albums that make for the best presents
As Christmas approaches, a fresh batch of deluxe reissues, box sets and greatest hits albums make great presents. The Mail’s music critic ADRIAN THRILLS rounds up the best.
TINA TURNER: Queen Of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Parlophone)
Tina Turner didn’t just sing songs. Blessed with a voice that an American record label boss once described as ‘screaming dirt’, she dominated them. This bumper compilation, out as a three-CD package (£15) and five-LP vinyl box (£112), gathers together all 55 of her solo singles. A more digestible, 12-song vinyl LP (£23) is also available.
It’s a comprehensive, chronological tribute to Tina, who died in May. There’s something irresistible about her 1970s covers of classic rock standards: she brings a beseeching tone to Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love and belts out The Who’s Acid Queen. Her later material didn’t always do justice to that voice, but even this period yielded highlights in the Trevor Horn-produced Whatever You Want and Missing You, both from 1996’s Wildest Dreams.
Her fortunes received an unlikely fillip when she teamed up with Sheffield producer Martyn Ware, of Heaven 17, in the 1980s — and the best moments here are from that decade. Her Ware-produced cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together turned her into a viable solo star, while What’s Love Got To Do With It captured all her emotional power.
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Tina Turner didn’t just sing songs. Blessed with a voice that an American record label boss once described as ‘screaming dirt’, she dominated them, writes ADRIAN THRILLS
TINA TURNER: Queen Of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Parlophone) is a bumper compilation, out as a three-CD package (£15) and five-LP vinyl box (£112), which gathers together all 55 of her solo singles
BRYAN FERRY: Mamouna (BMG)
Bryan Ferry found himself out of step with pop trends when he released his ninth solo album, Mamouna, in September 1994. The record arrived five months after Blur’s Parklife and a week after Oasis’s debut, Definitely Maybe, and its lush elegance couldn’t have been more at odds with the brashness of Britpop.
Now reissued as a triple CD (£23) and double vinyl LP (£32), it has aged like a fine wine, and this deluxe edition is boosted by Ferry’s lovely piano demos, plus a previously abandoned album, Horoscope.
It hadn’t been an easy record to make. When I interviewed Ferry a decade ago, he told me that the 1990s had been a ‘low period creatively, a time of soul-searching’. He was being hard on himself.
Not only does Mamouna stand up fantastically well, lifted by subtle hooks and yearning lyrics, but the eight-song Horoscope, also from those supposedly lean years, is a delight. The latter contains two songs, including the brilliant S&M (Midnight Train), that surfaced 20 years later on his Avonmore LP, but these versions are better. For Roxy Music fans, there’s also a stunning, nine-minute take on Mother Of Pearl.
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Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music performs on stage at The O2 Arena during their 50th Anniversary Tour, on October 14, 2022
BRYAN FERRY: Mamouna, now reissued as a triple CD (£23) and double vinyl LP (£32), has aged like a fine wine, and this deluxe edition is boosted by Ferry’s lovely piano demos, plus a previously abandoned album, Horoscope
KATIE MELUA: Call Off The Search (BMG)
This 20th anniversary reissue of Katie Melua’s chart-topping debut is a reminder of how far she’s moved on.
Produced by Mike Batt, and recorded just after a teenage Melua had left the BRIT School, it frames her as an easy-listening pop queen. As this year’s Love & Money proved, she’s now a more adventurous performer. Revamped as a double CD (£14) and vinyl LP (£28), Call Off The Search has been bolstered by demos and live tracks, though it’s still dominated by jazz and blues covers, and songs written by Batt.
The one Melua original, Belfast (Penguins And Cats), a song about sectarianism, was a taster of things to come.
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BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS: Catch A Fire (Island Records)
When Island Records boss Chris Blackwell decided, in 1973, to promote Bob Marley & The Wailers the same way as he marketed his mainstream rock bands — via albums rather than singles — he changed the way Jamaican reggae was seen.
It would be another four years before Marley scored his first Top Ten album (1977’s Exodus), but it was 1973’s Catch A Fire that sent him on his way. Now reissued, with out-takes and live tracks, as a triple CD (£32) and triple vinyl LP (£75), Catch A Fire is a typical Marley mix of protest music and love songs.
Blackwell enlisted Stones sideman Wayne Perkins to overdub blues guitar on Concrete Jungle and Stir It Up, but it’s the languid grooves and intricate harmonies of Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer that make this album so vital. With a new biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, due in February, it’s also perfectly timed.
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Bob Marley performing in 1979 in Santa Barbara, California
BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS: Catch A Fire (Island Records)
THE KILLERS: Rebel Diamonds (EMI)
Spanning all seven of the Las Vegas quartet’s studio albums, The Killers’ latest compilation celebrates the band’s 20th anniversary ahead of a 2024 arena tour. Out as a single CD (£12) and double vinyl LP (£40), it reiterates just how well singer Brandon Flowers, once praised for his ‘genuine fake English accent’, turned his love of The Smiths, The Cure and New Order into all-American gold.
The Killers began in a rush, and Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me get star billing here. But they’ve shown staying power, and the newer tracks stand up well. Quiet Town, from 2021’s Pressure Machine is vivid, yet understated. Spirit leans on Underworld’s Born Slippy, but shows their appetite for anthems is undimmed.
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JEWEL: Spirit (Craft)
Reissued as a double CD (£21) and double vinyl LP (£38.20), Jewel’s second album, from 1998, feels like a period piece. The Alaskan singer was an unlikely folk-pop heroine at the height of the grunge boom, but her lyrics now sound guileless. ‘If I could tell the world just one thing, it would be that we’re all OK,’ she sings on Hands. But this expanded edition is notable for the 23 bonus tracks on its CD and digital editions. As well as live versions of hits You Were Meant For Me and Who Will Save Your Soul, there are demos, including one for stand-out track Life Uncommon, that transport her back to her early years.
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TRACK OF THE WEEK: LOVE IS A LONG ROAD by TOM PETTY
This 1980s anthem, from Petty’s first solo album, is enjoying a new lease of life after featuring in a trailer for the Grand Theft Auto VI computer game. Driven by guitarist Mike Campbell’s power chords, its streaming figures are surging.
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Job etc. (Onyx)
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VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Job etc. (Onyx)
This album is an ideal Christmas present for the Vaughan Williams enthusiast who thinks he or she has everything
In 1927 the composer was inspired by the centenary of William Blake to write a ballet score on the subject of the Old Testament character Job; it was first staged in 1931.
RVW called it ‘a masque for dancing’, which has probably put some likely performers off, but the music is full of character and the work as a whole is a real masterpiece.
Sir Adrian Boult was its great interpreter in bygone days but Andrew Manze has been assembling a magnificent store of RVW recordings with the Royal Liverpool Phil.
He has again hit the jackpot and with user-friendly notes by Lewis Foreman, the disc is a triumph; the dynamic range is very wide, so you should not turn up the volume.
Do not miss the superb saxophonist in ‘Dance of Job’s Comforters’; as makeweights Manze gives us two folk dance-based works, Old King Cole and The Running Set.
VOCES8: A Choral Christmas (Decca)
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VOCES8: A Choral Christmas (Decca)
The choral group Voces8 are clearly making a bid for the soundtrack of Home Alone 7, when it gets made.
The eight Christmas carols are swamped by lavish, Hollywood-style orchestrations, to such an extent that some of them virtually disappear; In Dulci Jubilo is about the best.
Most of the arrangements are by Taylor Scott Davis, who also contributes a Magnificat which has little to offer except a few jazzy rhythms and an interpolated English poem.
Voces8 now have their own Foundation with a choir and orchestra, and their eight basic members are augmented on a few tracks by two extra singers; Barnaby Smith conducts.
The recordings, made at All Hallows, Gospel Oak, St Jude-on-the-Hill, Hampstead and Voces8’s own centre, are incredibly lush. If that is the sort of thing that turns you on…
TULLY POTTER
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