AS previously announced last month, National Album Day will return for its third edition on Saturday 10 October – and today reveals a second wave of artist ambassadors who will be championing their love for the album between now and the day itself.
Joining the already-announced Billy Ocean, Blossoms, La Roux, Psychedelic Furs and Toyah Willcox are T’Pau vocalist and musician Carol Decker, DJ, producer and founder of Soul II Soul Jazzie B, ABC founder and frontman Martin Fry, iconic pop father and daughter Marty and Kim Wilde, and country-pop twin sisters Ward Thomas – who will be marking National Album Day and the release of their brand new album Invitation with an exclusive global live stream headline performance from London’s historic Theatre Royal Haymarket on 10th October, featuring a cover of an ’80s song in keeping with the theme!
Carol Decker, one of the archetypal female pop voices of the 80s, said: “I know that streaming is really easy and convenient, and I too like to quickly dip into a single I just heard on the radio, but when an artist puts an album together they are creating a narrative for their work.
“In my songs. I am often curating my personal thoughts and dreams and laying them out for you to inspect. I labour over the track listing, making sure one song hands over smoothly to the next. I take you on a journey of different tempos and emotions. It is a very raw feeling to let your baby go after
months in the studio and see if it makes any friends. I am proud to have been a small part of the most diversely creative era in music and hear its influence on emerging artists. I am honoured to support National Album Day.”
Jazzie B, who, as the frontman of Soul II Soul was behind one of the 80s most enduring R&B songs of the era, ‘Back to Life’, said: “I’ve always loved albums. A good album tells an entire story instead of just giving you a chapter, taking the listener through a series of emotions. To me, getting an album’s track sequencing right to make that story as smooth as possible was one of the most exciting parts of the recording process – similar to when I’m playing (DJ-ing) the Soul2Soul sound
system and spinning tunes in a certain order to take the crowd up and down almost without them realising it.”
Kim Wilde, who reigned the pop charts in the ’80s with hit albums and singles, including ‘Kids in America’, and her father, Marty Wilde, the legendary rock ‘n roll songwriter who wrote a lot of her iconic songs, and who is set to release a brand new album ahead of National Album Day, together commented: “An album can be a ticket for the greatest journey that lasts a lifetime!”
Martin Fry, an English music icon of the 1980s and lead singer of ABC, said: “Growing up listening to everything from Bowie to the Buzzcocks there were albums released that, hand on heart, saved my life.”
Ward Thomas, whose second studio album became the first album by a UK country act to reach Number 1 on the UK Albums Chart said: “Albums are so important to us because they are a perfect time capsule showing where a specific artist is at a specific time. By listening to an album in full you can really get to know an artist. There really isn’t anything else that can do that.
“This year’s National Album Day is celebrating the 80s!! Music from the ’80s has shaped so many genres of music to this day and personally we loved albums like ‘Graceland’ by Paul Simon. The decade had so many exciting musical cultures blended into one and it inspired us to create music with an open mind. It made us approach music in a way that is never genre specific.
“Album’s such as ‘Graceland’, ‘New Jersey’ by Bon Jovi, ‘Purple Rain’ by Prince are big albums for us! The musicianship is just unreal and the messages in so much of the songwriting were very philosophical. A lot of music from the ’80s has inspired the way we create music now!”
This year’s ’80s-themed National Album Day creates the perfect opportunity to revisit some of the decade’s greatest artists, and on Friday 9th October an exciting array of reissues, limited vinyl and box sets will be available as part of the National Album Day celebrations including Sade ‘This Far’ – a six-album vinyl box set featuring all of their studio albums to date, a 40th anniversary picture vinyl of Iron Maiden’s debut album, 12” vinyl releases from Bonnie Tyler and Marillion, coloured vinyl releases from Phil Collins, Cyndi Lauper, Europe and Meat Loaf, and picture discs for the iconic film soundtracks for 80s cinema hits Top Gun and Footloose.
Full product list to date below, with even more confirmed titles to come.
NEW PRODUCT: (more titles tba)
Artist – album – format
Sade – This Far – 180-gram heavyweight black vinyl box set
Bonnie Tyler – Between The Earth And The Stars (Ltd. and numbered coloured vinyl edition) -12″ vinyl
Joe Jackson – Live Music – Europe 2010 (Ltd. and numbered orange vinyl edition) – 12″ vinyl
Marillion – Live From Cadogan Hall (Ltd. and numbered red vinyl edition) – 12″ vinyl
The Specials – More Specials [40th anniversary half-speed master] – vinyl
ULTRAVOX – Vienna [40th anniversary deluxe edition] – CD boxset/vinyl/digital
Cyndi Lauper – She’s So Unusual – coloured vinyl (red)
Europe – The Final Countdown – coloured vinyl (blue splatter)
Meat Loaf – Dead Ringer – coloured vinyl (dark red)
New Kids On The Block – Hangin’ Tough – picture disc
Various – Top Gun – picture disc
Various – Footloose – picture disc
Iron Maiden – Iron Maiden – 1LP, 180g picture disc
Phil Collins – No Jacket Required – 1LP, 180g orange
The Wedding Present – Bizarro – standard vinyl
Tears for Fears – The Seeds of Love – picture disc LP, remastered vinyl LP, remastered deluxe two CDs, 4CD /blu-ray super deluxe edition
Dire Straits – The Studio Albums 1978-1991 CD box set + vinyl box set
ALREADY ANNOUNCED:
Artist – album – format
Paul Simon – Graceland – clear vinyl
The Stone Roses – Stone Roses – clear vinyl
Smash Hit 80s – Smash Hits 80s – 2LP, 180g red
Duran Duran – Duran Duran – 2LP, 180g white
Talk Talk – It’s My Life – 1LP, 180g purple
Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching for the Young Soul Rebels – 1LP, 180g red
Blues Brothers – Blues Brothers – 1LP, 180g transparent blue
Simply Red – Picture Book – 1LP, 180g black
Ice T – Rhyme Pays – 1LP, 140g yellow
The Lost Boys – The Lost Boys Soundtrack – 1LP, 140g red
ZZ Top – Eliminator – 1LP, 140g yellow
Rod Stewart – Greatest Hits Vol 1 – 1LP, 140g white
Alphaville – Forever Young – 1LP 180g orange
Roxette – Look Sharp! – 1LP, 180g clear
Howard Jones – Cross That Line – deluxe 3CD / 1DVD reissue
Sigue Sigue Sputnik – Flaunt It – deluxe 4CD boxset
Various – Rocky IV – picture disc
The Psychedelic Furs – Made of Rain – white coloured LP
A new ‘Must See Movies 80s’ video promotion is also confirmed to celebrate this year’s National Album Day with supermarkets and retailers including Asda, Morrisons, Amazon, HMV and Tesco stocking a range of classic 80s film titles including Big, Blade Runner, Cocktail, Dirty Dancing, ET, Ghost, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, Labyrinth, The Lost Boys, Purple Rain, Robocop, Stand By Me, Top Gun and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
National Album Day is organised jointly by record labels body the BPI (The BRIT Awards and Hyundai Mercury Prize) and the Entertainment Retailers Association (Record Store Day), and is supported across the BBC with highlights available to listen to on BBC Sounds, along with the UK’s recorded music industry – including AIM and other trade associations, retailers and digital/streaming platforms – and partners including Classic Albums Sunday – who this October celebrate their tenth anniversary.
Watch out for more exciting announcements for National Album Day over the coming weeks!
With the album already at the fore of the UK music calendar, following the shortlist announcement of the 2020 Hyundai Mercury Prize ‘Albums of the Year’ and in anticipation of the forthcoming Record Store Day Drops, National Album Day creates another opportunity to engage with the much-loved format. Based on Official Charts data 154 million albums or their equivalent were purchased, downloaded or streamed in 2019 – up 7.7 per cent on the previous year, and even during the first six months of a Covid-hit 2020, album equivalent sales have risen by 6.8 per cent. The format
does particularly well on vinyl – with over 4.3 million LP sales in 2019 following 12 years of consecutive growth – and even the humble cassette, the quintessential 80s format, is now finding favour again, with over 130,000 projected sales for this year – the highest sales since 2003.
In the past two years, National Album Day has been supported by a diverse range of artists and musicians including Lewis Capaldi, Mark Ronson, Elbow, Paloma Faith, Alice Cooper, Novelist, Tom Odell, Mahalia and Orbital among many others, and has hosted a variety of events and activities including Classic Album Sunday and Tape Notes events, in-store artist appearances, record store promotions, and two Network Rail exhibitions in major cities across the UK.
Keep track of the National Album Day website for more news, events and exclusive Album Day activities to be announced in the coming weeks. Much more to come!
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Kate Etteridge kate.etteridge@dawbell.com 020 3327 7111
Jordan Shepley jordan.shepley@dawbell.com 020 327 7180
Amy Allen amy.allen@dawbell.com 0203 327 7177
Notes for editors:
About National Album Day – www.nationalalbumday.co.uk
Following a successful inaugural year, National Album Day is set to return for its third annual edition on Saturday, 10th October. Organised jointly by record labels body the BPI and ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association), representing the nation’s music retailers and digital/streaming platforms, and with the active participation of AIM (Association of Independent Music), National Album Day has the
backing and input of the wider music community.
This year taking the 1980s as its inspiration, the music and artist community will come together with the support of BBC Sounds and partners such as Classic Album Sundays for a series of events and activities in the lead up to 10th October that will celebrate the UK’s love for the album and the craft that goes into making this culturally significant body of work.
About the artist ambassadors:
Carol Decker
Lead vocalist of T’Pau Carol Decker has enjoyed commercial success since T’Pau’s launch in the mid 1980s. The group’s 1987 debut album ‘Bridge of Spies’ reached Number 1 in the UK and has since gone four times platinum. The band have also had six UK Top Ten singles. Carol also released a solo single ‘One Heart’ in 1995 and now owns her own record label, Gnatfish.
Jazzie B
British DJ Jazzie B first found fame as the founding member of British music collective, Soul II Soul. Since the group’s formation in the late 80s, they have achieved three UK Top Ten albums and five UK Top Ten singles. Continuing his musical legacy, Jazzie B was the first ever person to be given the Inspiration Award at the Ivor Novello Awards in 2008, noted for being “a man who gave black British music a soul of its own”.
Kim Wilde and Marty Wilde
English pop singer, author, DJ and television presenter, Kim Wilde, first saw success with her 1981 hit ‘Kids in America’. Since then, Wilde has recorded 14 studio albums, which have sold over ten million copies worldwide. She still holds the record for being the most-charted British female solo artist of the 1980s, with 17 UK Top Ten singles. Her father, Marty Wilde MBE, was one of the first British pop artists to emulate American rock’n’roll. He has released ten studio albums and has achieved six UK Top Ten singles. His latest single ‘60’s World’ features Kim.
Marty will be releasing his brand new album, ‘Running Together’, on 2nd October.
Martin Fry
English singer-songwriter, composer, musician and record producer Martin Fry first found fame as the lead singer of 1980s new wave group, ABC. ABC recorded nine studio albums with their platinum selling 1982 debut album ‘The Lexicon of Love’ charting Number 1 in the UK, consistently voted as one of the Top 100 albums of all time. In 2016 Martin Fry released the ’The Lexicon Of Love II’, the long-waited follow up which went Top Five in the UK charts.
Ward Thomas
Modern country-pop duo Ward Thomas is composed of twin sisters Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas. Their second album, ‘Cartwheels’, was the first album by a country act to reach Number 1 on the UK Album Charts and has since gone silver in the UK. The duo are praised by fans and fellow country acts alike for delivering the American sound of country from a British perspective. Their brand new album ‘Invitation’ is out on 9th October.
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