A career-spanning 35 track collection of hit singles and fan favourites including National Express, Something For The Weekend, Songs of Love, Our Mutual Friend, A Lady of A Certain Age, To The Rescue and Norman and Norma. It also includes a brand new track The Best Mistakes. Remastered at Abbey Road, the new ‘Best Of’ offers a comprehensive guide to The Divine Comedy as curated by Neil Hannon himself and is released on his own Divine Comedy Records. Charmed Life follows 2019’s top five album Office Politics and 2020’s extensive Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time reissues project.
Digitally remastered and expanded edition. Jungle Jezebel is one of the classic cult dance albums of the 1980s, a must have for all Hi-HRG, disco, dance and pop fans out there! Almost 30 years on from his untimely death, Divine undoubtedly contributed to the LGBT narrative contained within pop culture in that time. His consistently fluid (and of course lewd) representation of sexuality and gender challenged the theatrics of 1980s pop music within his mainstream success. Created in collaboration with 'Pope of Trash' John Waters, Divine was a brash, confident persona who encouraged self-love within every aspect of his work, a central theme that has maintained his cult status ever since. After the success of his partnership with Waters, Divine would branch out with New York performer/producer Bobby O to launch a musical career that boasted a dizzying angle on Hi-NRG.
In 1990 Neil Hannon started recording and releasing under the name The Divine Comedy. Thirty years and twelve great albums later, Hannon is rightly adjudged one of the finest singer songwriters of his generation. To celebrate, Divine Comedy Records are remastering and reissuing nine of the band's classic albums.
The Divine Baze Orchestra was founded by Oliver Eek (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Christian Eklöf (drums, percussion) in 2003 immediately followed by Alexander Frisborg (lead vocals, mellotron, rhythm guitar) and Tobias Petterson (bass). In the beginning the band's sound was similar to many of the heavy, fuzzy bands of the late 60's and early 70's, but as time passed, they were more and more drawn towards the experimental, psychedelic and jazz-oriented bands of the same era. After a few years of intense giging in the space of Sweden Daniel Karlsson (organ, mellotron) joined The Divine Baze Orchestra and the band entered a new sound dimension. The completed line-up now could also explore symphonic sound landscapes with the power of the organ behind them and it took some time to rearrange the old material to be suited to the new instruments…