FIVE STAR
GOLD
CRIMSON★★★
TINA TURNER
SIMPLY THE BEST
RHINO
★★★
Reissued as a double LP – though
not remastered – these 18 songs
capture Tina at her polished
1980s to early 90s best. It’s
impossible to deny the title track’s
hurricane force, nor I Can’t Stand
The Rain’s inventive production,
while We Don’t Need Another
Hero (Thunderdome)’s bombast
may have dated but remains
impressive. Her Rod Stewart
duet It Takes Two is best saved
for weddings, and a Hi-NRG
reinterpretation of Nutbush
City Limits does the original no
favours, but only a corpse
could resist Private Dancer.
Wyndham Wallace
BETH GIBBONS
& RUSTIN MAN
OUT OF SEASON
UMC★★★★★
Reissued on vinyl for the fi rst
time since its 2002 release, the
ultimate compliment you can
pay Portishead’s singer and
Talk Talk’s bassist is that Out
Of Season is as good as their
bands. Part baleful folk, part a
precursor to Portishead’s Third
in its unsettling mood (and, in
Tom The Model, a James Bond
theme if the franchise ever went
terrifying), the pair’s stately
workrate means a follow-up is
unlikely. That they got together at
all made for a classic that’s still
revealing fresh layers of exquisite
unease years later. JEVARIOUS ARTISTS
2 TONE 7" TREASURES
CHRYSALIS
★★★★
The decision to start the 40th
anniversary 2 Tone releases
with yet another reissue of The
Specials’ self-titled debut album
was an unusually mundane
choice by Jerry Dammers. It
transpires he was saving the
big move for the second 2 Tone
retrospective: a 7" boxset of 12
of the label’s biggest singles.
You’ll fi nd the obvious classics
here: A Message To You Rudy
and its fi erce B-side Nite Klub.
Madness launching with The
Symphony from The Specials,
Ranking Roger in his prime on
Ranking Full Stop by The Beat...
For the fi ve years collected
here, the 2 Tone cartoon mascot
was a beacon worth celebrating.
It was a time when it felt like a
three-minute pop song really
could change the country, andif it couldn’t alter it, it could at
least refl ect what was happening
with absolute precision. And
once it had done that, you could
get your groove on. Even if you
weren’t politically aligned to
Ghost Town, you couldn’t deny
its rumble or the fi re of The Prince
and On My Radio. JEFive Star’s fi rst hits package since
2003 and certainly their most
comprehensive, enough time
has passed since the Pearson
siblings were mocked for their
bling showiness to judge their
music on its own merits again.
Although she’s the only Pearson
in their new lineup, Denise told
CP last month the group are at
peace again, and you’d hope
so: at their best, Five Star made
some excellent R&B bangers.
Comprising 33 singles and
17 remixes, those early hits like
Can’t Wait Another Minute and
System Addict sound box-fresh. If
anything, the perfectly-arranged
harmonies of Strong As
Steel and Rain Or Shine
make more sense now,
when the Top 40 is replete
with Five Star’s successors.
The Pearsons infamously
started to concentrate more
on their car collection than
the music, and Gold is
wise to cut off at 1991’sshrugging Shine, ignoring their
last two albums completely. The
militaristic With Every Heartbeat
from 1989 is the last (so far)
funk assault. Shep Pettibone and
Jason Morales are among the
remixers, Morales’ slick take on
All Fall Down the highlight of the
remix disc.
Their story of sibling rivalry
and getting complacent with
fame isn’t especially rare. Five
black Essex teenagers smashing
into the 80s Top 40 by predicting
21st century pop trends is a much
more powerful tale. JEPrince, a stomp that makes
Terry Hall’s dislike of them a
headscratcher. The Selecter,
thankfully, get more than just On
My Radio, as Pauline Black’s
gang are equally righteous on
Three Minute Hero. Female ska
band The Bodysnatchers might
have fared better now with the
piratical Let’s Do Rocksteady
than in the not-quite-ready 1980.
And few can match the suss of
Rico Rodriguez in full fl ow on his
solo single Sea Cruise.
All the while, those Specials
singles keep coming, with
Stereotype, Ghost Town, the
No.1 live version of Too Much
Too Young and the box’s fi nal
single Free Nelson Mandela
from The Special AKA
incarnation all present.
The short punch of the 7"
is the perfect format for it all,
especially with those dazzling
B-sides: Friday Night, Saturday
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