Marc Almond

Digitally remastered and expanded edition of Marc Almond's 11th solo album, Stranger Things (2001). Containing no less than 32 bonus tracks across discs two and three including original song demos, remixes, rarities, alternative versions and live renditions of Stranger Things album tracks recorded around the time of the album's sessions.

Hits And Pieces The Best Of Marc Almond And Soft Cell traces Almond's singles career from Soft Cell through to his solo work and collaborations. Almond has always excelled at recording superb singles he has secured a body of work that encompasses truly outstanding originals, covers and duets. Highlights of Hits And Pieces include Tainted Love, What!, Say Hello Wave Goodbye, the Number One reaching Gene Pitney duet Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart, his interpretation of Scott Walker's cover of Jacques Brel's Jacky with its epic kitchen sink production from Trevor Horn, a cover of Donna Summer's I Feel Love.

Marc Almond is captured in a performance at the Lokerse Festival in Belgium on August 7, 2000, in this video. Accompanied only by guitarist Neal X and keyboard player John Green, the singer begins with four consecutive songs from his most recent album at the time, Open All Night, before turning to his back catalog for such solo hits as "Tears Run Rings," "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart," "A Lover Spurned," "Jacky," "My Hand over My Heart," "The Days of Pearly Spencer," "The Idol," and "Child Star," then filling his encores with his early Soft Cell hits "Tainted Love," "Bedsitter," and "Say Hello Wave Goodbye." The unadorned stage with only modest lighting and special effects (a small fan blows dry ice around), plus the small ensemble require Almond to exert himself before an audience that seems (from the few glimpses of it), attentive but not particularly enthusiastic, at least until the end. Beginning in a leather coat, the bleach-blond singer is soon down to a sparkly black shirt, unbuttoned to display his tattoos, as he gesticulates grandly and, gradually, the music takes on more of a hard disco sound that gets his listeners dancing more.

Originally released in August 1990, this is the first ever expanded re-issue of Marc Almond’s opulent sixth studio album. “Enchanted” is saturated in Marc’s signature poetic romanticism and contains some of his finest lyric writing in songs as various as the epic ‘Madame De La Luna’, ‘Death’s Diary’ and ‘Orpheus In Red Velvet’. The album’s lush lead single, ‘A Lover Spurned’, is a classic Almond power ballad of unrequited love with an equally thrilling production by Stephen Hague, employing a melodramatically thunderous 48-piece orchestra.