The Pet Shop Boys have a new best-of album out! But, er, only in Brazil. The track listing is a little bit odd, but that's partly explained by the fact that it's been designed to include some tracks which have been featured in Brazilian soap operas. The full track listing looks like this:
West End Girls (10'' Mix)
Love Comes Quickly
Paninaro (7'' Mix)
It's A Sin (Disco Mix)
What Have I Done To Deserve This?
Always On My Mind (Extended Dance Version)
Domino Dancing
It's Alright (7'' Version)
Being Boring
Go West
Before (Single Edit)
New York City Boy
Home And Dry (Radio Edit)
Minimal (Radio Edit)
Love etc.
King of Rome
But to save you shelling out inflated import prices or messing about with half a dozen CDs to get the tracks you already own in a different order, here's a handy cut-out-and-keep playlist:
It's surprising how Derek B has been... well, perhaps not deliberately airbrushed out of UK musical history, but certainly overlooked by those who compile the lists and decide who's important. He may have been helped along by the tidal wave of DIY house and hip-hop acts (Bomb The Bass, S-Express, Coldcut, Krush, LA Mix et al) that hit the charts in the first half of 1988 in the wake of MARRS's truly ground-breaking Pump Up The Volume, but as I sit here, I can't think of any British rappers before Derek B who could claim two top twenty hit singles; Good Groove and the Prince-sampling Bad Young Brother both reached #16 in the UK charts.
Indeed, his profile was so high at the time that he even warranted a mention in Harry Enfield's opportunistic Loadsamoney single - "Derek B? On your biiiiike!"
However, lest we forget, Derek B's biggest success was as co-writer of an even bigger crime against music... Liverpool FC's Anfield Rap.
Released 25 years ago this week (5 November 1984) in the UK, George and Andrew's second and final proper album was the one that broke them in the States. As with their debut set Fantastic, the album consisted of only eight tracks, although half of those exceeded the five minute mark. Eyebrows were also raised at the inclusion of Careless Whisper which had been a much trumpeted George Michael solo single a few months earlier, although it was the only track on this album for which Andrew Ridgeley received a writing credit. Also included were the duo's two chart topping singles of that year, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and Freedom, plus their next single Everything She Wants (released shortly after the album as a double A-side with Last Christmas) and a cover of the Isley Brothers' If You Were There.
The original UK LP release had no text at all on the front cover.
The US release dispensed with such subtlety.
The Luxury Gap's 25th anniversary edition includes five bonus tracks:
Last Christmas (Pudding Mix) - Released as a festive single a month after the album, as a double A-side with...
Everything She Wants (Remix) - This remix was released in January 1985 in an attempt to prolong the chart life of the single.
Freedom (Extended Version) - One of surprisingly few Wham! extended 12" mixes.
Careless Whisper (7" Version) - Having said that, the album included the extended 12" mix of George's solo debut. This is the 7" mix, itself a tiny bit over five minutes in length.
Everything She Wants '97 - A second remix for the track, this one was created as a bonus track for 1997's If You Were There - The Best Of Wham!
Dr E Vibenstein was born - through no fault of his own - in the week that "Amazing Grace" by the Pipes And Drums Of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards was the number one single, a trauma from which he never quite recovered.
The seeds of his literary career were sown when, at the tender age of seven, he received perhaps the ultimate accolade - the joke he sent to The Beano was chosen as "Joke Of The Week".
Having comprehensively failed to become a rich and successful rock star, EV was bitten by the Internet bug in 1997, and after a course of painful injections, inaugurated a website of his very own, which has attracted enthusiastic e-mails from all over the world, not all of which have been "get rich quick" schemes or invitations to websites containing pornographic material.
The full track listing looks like this:
