The Pet Shop Boys will release a new greatest hits album in June called Smash: The Singles 1985-2020.

This release features new 2023 remasters and includes 55 singles, starting with West End Girls from ’85 and ending with 2020’s I Don’t Wanna. It includes most of their singles although there’s a few grey areas/omissions such as no ‘How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?’ (from 1991’s Behaviour) and a lack of ‘Burning The Heather' (the latter, from 2020’s Hotspot, was issued on seven-inch vinyl in the UK).

The physical formats are a 3CD+2xblu-ray, 6LP vinyl and a 3CD set without the video content. Where appropriate, all the singles are seven-inch remixes or edits. A special 6LP white vinyl and triple-cassette edition are available exclusively via the Pet Shop Boys shop.

The 3CD+2blu-ray sees all the videos on blu-ray for the first time. A second blu-ray contains bonus videos and lyric videos including for some of the songs excluded from the main audio offering. 66 videos in total!

The Pet Shop Boys commented: “As we start work on a new album, and later this year continue our ‘Dreamworld’ greatest hits tour, it seems like a good time to take stock and bring together every single we’ve released.”

Smash: The Singles 1985-2020 will be released on 16 June, via Parlophone.

Rick Astley’s 1988 album Hold Me In Your Arms will be reissued in May as an expanded 2CD set and on coloured vinyl.

The album is 35 years old and features three top 10 UK singles in ‘She Wants To Dance With Me’, ‘Take Me To Your Heart’ and the title track. Astley also continued his success in North America; ‘She Wants To Dance With Me’ was a top 10 hit and the US-only single, ‘Giving Up On Love’, was a top 40 hit.

Hold Me In Your Arms has been newly remastered and the 2CD edition offers 18 bonus tracks, which doesn’t quite match the 21 from the 2010 double-CD from Edsel. Like last year’s reissue of Rick’s 1987 debut Whenever You Need Somebody, this new 2CD set offers some ‘Reimagined’ versions (first issued on the 2019 Best of Me compilation). This deluxe CD edition comes with an expanded booklet that includes previously unseen photographs of Rick from 1988/1989.

There is also an album-only LP which features the new remaster is presented on blue vinyl.

Hold Me In Your Arms will be reissued on 12 May 2023, via BMG.

Out today is Everything But The Girl's new 'Nothing Left To Lose Remix EP'. The EP is led by a box-fresh remix by Four Tet (aka Kieran Hebden), and includes extended club and dub mixes of the original from Ben Watt and Bruno Ellingham.

Speaking about the new Four Tet remix, Ben and Tracey say: ‘We've always loved that meditative but propulsive thing in Kieran's music. The restraint mixed with momentum. It is something that we often explore as well, so asking him to rework one of our songs felt like a great fit. There is a confident lightness of touch to his remix, underpinned by a raw killer beat, and a beautiful final third where all the subtle intricacies of his additional production coalesce’.

Four Tet - fresh from a career-high show at New York’s Madison Square Garden with Fred Again and Skrillex last month - delivers a remix that steers the track further into 4-on-the-floor club territory, staying close to the original while still sprinkling the defining production elements that have made him such a revered producer.

The extended club and dub mixes by Ben Watt and album engineer Bruno Ellingham amp up and re-arrange the original version for dance floors.

This is what I Am Boleyn has to say about the song:

'The Corrs are one of the bands I remember most from my childhood - their beautiful harmonies and infections pop songs bring up very happy memories! I really enjoyed recording this synth pop version of their classic 'Breathless'. What a chorus! I wanted to keep the energy of the original by using saxophone on that riff. It's the perfect cheeky love song and I hope we've kept that charm.'

Simply Red are back with a new studio album, Time. Out on 26 May via Warner Music, the album is predceded by the release of new single Better With You. You can listen to it here.

“On the song itself, I’m reminiscing on phase one of the relationship with my wife, when we first met in Milan,” Mick Hucknall says of the track. “At that time, I was single and just partying my way around the world. And I thought to myself: well, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was just going along, having a right old time. It just stemmed from there.”

“When we were in lockdown, I went, well, jeez, who am I actually?” he says. “What makes me tick? And I realised: you are a songwriter. So why don’t you write some songs about who you are? That’s really the essence of this album.”

With a career spanning 12 studio albums as Simply Red (five of them No.1s), two solo LPs, back-to-back ASCAP Most Performed Song honours (1987 and 1988) for Holding Back The Years, consecutive Brit Awards (1992 and 1993) for Best British Group, a Brit for Best British Male (1993), the 1997 MOBO for Outstanding Achievement, two Ivor Novellos (1992 Songwriter of the Year; 2002 Outstanding Song Collection), and some 60 million album sales, Mick is ready to continue the ride into the next chapter.

“Music is one of those wonderful communicators,” he says. “Each and every person can have an interpretation of a song that can mean something to them. To be able to create something that is then shared with millions of people all over the world – what a joy. How can anything be more rewarding and fulfilling than that?”

Track Listing
1. Better With You
2. Just Like You
3. Let Your Hair Down
4. Shades 22
5. It Wouldn’t Be Me
6. Never Be Gone
7. Too Long At The Fair
8. Slapbang
9. Hey Mister
10. Just Like You (Pt. 2)
11. Butterflies
12. Earth In A Lonely Space