It has been a long time since Dexys Midnight Runners released a new album of fresh material - 1985 to be precise but one came out earlier this year
called 'One Day I'm Going To Soar'. I'd deliberately delayed buying the album until now as a kind of treat as I knew it was easily going to be best album of 2012
before I'd even heard a single note. Although it has aspects of all of the previous Dexy's albums it is most like their last album 'Don't Stand Me Down' which
at the time signalled both the pinnacle and end of their career simultaneously which is a rare achievement.
So inevitably I hunted through my collection for some of my other Dexy's memorabilia to celebrate this special day starting with the laserdiscs that featured Dexys.
These two laserdiscs feature the 1982 concert at Shaftesbury Theatre in England. For once I actually prefer the PAL version with the larger cover because so many
copies of the Pioneer Artists US edition suffer from rot, although I did eventually track down a rot free copy after buying about 5 copies! This concert was
eventually released on DVD in 2006 although it is currently unavailable so you will probably find locating the 30 year old laserdisc edition easier currently!
'Come on Eileen' was their most memorable hit so the video was featured on many music compilation LDs of the time such as:
The best tracks though can be found on their 1985 album 'Don't Stand Me Down' album such as 'This Is What She's Like' whose video also made it to laserdisc on this compilation:
I included a picture of most of the main Dexys and Kevin Rowland solo related CD albums just for discussion:
The 3 different release of their 'Don't Stand Me Down' album are shown - second row starting from the left in order.
Original 1st edition 1985 copies of the CD are genuinely quite hard to track down nowadays. I've picked up several mint editions over the years.
The Creation Records 2nd edition CD of 'Don't Stand Me Down' from 1997 (B&W closeup of two people on the cover) had the sound tinkered with which displeased Kevin Rowland.
Finally in 2003 a limited edition directors cut of 'Don't Stand Me Down' was issued on CD by EMI with the tracks and sound properly adjusted and a bonus DVD of the videos from that album even included.
All 3 editons are currently out of print and therefore quite valuable.
Also featured are the two different editions of Kevin Rowland's first solo album 'The Wanderer'. The first edition is the original Mercury Records release from 1988.
The second edition was made available in 2004 briefly as a CD-R on demand. The album had been deleted for many years and Universal Music and it's group of companies re-released it along with many other titles from their archives on demand via CD-R which also included a respectable copy of the original artwork. I actually bought this before I managed to track down the original 1st edition release.
Let's also not forget Kevin Rowland's infamous 2nd solo album 'My Beauty' where he decided to promote the album by dressing in woman's clothing during the photo sessions!!
This proved to be a disastrous move and the album was a total flop commercially. On the plus side that album is now worth about £50 for a near mint copy on the collector market as so few copies were actually sold.
Various other Dexys compilation CDs surfaced over the years featuring B sides, live tracks and other rarities not previously issued on CD.
Kevin released another CD of cover versions in 2007 - this time a personal selection of classic Motown cuts called 'Made To Measure'. He also opted for a more subdued cover this time with hat and leather jacket!
The most recent 2012 album under the shortened 'Dexys' name gathers together some of the original musicians alongside new members to release a completely new album of material since 1985. The good news is it does not disappoint.
Thanks list
