Elsewhere: Boy could he play guitar

By GRAHAM REID

DAVID BOWIE: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (30th anniversary edition)

Label: EMI

Anyone doubting the continuing influence of Bowie's early-70s work need only check Grant-Lee Phillips' recent Mobilize - or even Bowie's new Heathen.

Ziggy has always been available on CD and in 1990 there was a handsome re-presentation in a box with a fat booklet. This 30th-anniversary edition, however, would seem the final and definitive version.

Here's the digitally remastered original album with an extra disc of Ziggy-related tracks from the period (demos, an unreleased mix of Moonage Daydream, his version of Jaques Brel's Amsterdam, Velvet Goldmine and John I'm Only Dancing among others) and packaged with a lavish booklet of a timeline, Bowie trivia and an essay.

Classic album given appropriate treatment and we might say "the last word", but that presumes no further technological advances before the 40th anniversary edition which will doubtless come with a life-size hologram of Ziggy who will play for your pleasure.

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THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO

Velvet Underground: Deluxe Edition

Label: Universal

And anyone doubting the continuing influence of the Velvet Underground '67 classic (in the Warhol banana-sleeve) need only listen to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. As with the Bowie, this seminal album gets the expanded treatment on its 35th anniversary and also appears as a double disc, the first is the stereo version plus five VU tracks which appeared on Nico's Chelsea Girls album. The second disc is a mono version (which, like Phil Spector tracks, many insist has greater resonance for its aural flatness) along with the VU singles All Tomorrow's Parties, I'll Be Your Mirror, Sunday Morning and Femme Fatale. Again, it hasn't been hard to find this VU album on CD but this looks definitive. A hologram of Nico could be interesting though, huh?

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BURNING SPEAR

Hail H.I.M.

Label: EMI

In the mid-70s Jamaica's Burning Spear - then the group of Winston Rodney, Delroy Hines and Rupert Willington - released two classic reggae albums, Social Living and Marcus Garvey. Their dub versions (Living Dub and Garvey's Ghost) were equally stunning.

Rodney ousted the others and took on the name and continued to explore his Rasta beliefs on a series of albums which were, for the most part, extraordinarily consistent. Hail H.I.M. - "His Imperial Majesty", ie Haile Selassie - from 1980 was one of his finest in which he nailed the "discoverer" of the region, Christopher Columbus ("a liar, what about the Arawak Indians?"), chanted his praises of Jah and Garvey, and railed against the lack of education about Africa.

What separates Spear from the pack is his authoritative voice and Old Testament gravitas, and top-line musicians such as Wailers bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett, drummer Nelson Miller, guitarist Junior Marvin and keyboardist Earl "Wire" Lindo. This digitally remastered version is one of a Spear reissue that includes the equally essential Farover from '82, and Fittest of the Fittest ('83). Dark and forbidding territory.

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DEXY'S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS

Don't Stand Me Down

Label: EMI

When Dexy's frontman Kevin Rowlands appeared in a dress a few years ago the rock world guffawed and felt faintly embarrassed for him.

However, it wasn't the first time clothes had unmadeth the man. For this '85 album he and the Dexy's remaining after the success of Come On Eileen (The Overall Years) adopted the American Ivy League look and were widely pilloried. It was their final album.

Reissued on Creation in '85 (the sound was not to Rowlands' satisfaction, however) and now reappears in a slightly different form, opening with a narrative he originally intended as the introduction (not bad but hardly earth-shattering).

The persistent will hear this as a concept album (there are spoken-word interludes which pall quickly) but the songs are considerably better than the damning reception it originally received.

This Is What She's Like is a fine ballad, his spoken word/song Reminisce about the loss of love doesn't have the resonance of Van Morrison but the music's nice and, like the rollicking Eileen-ish I Love You which follows, has the virtue of sounding nakedly honest. One of Those Things (he concedes now) shamelessly ripped off Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London (Warren now gets co-writing credit). Comes with a DVD disc of three videos. Overall a curiosity, but not without its idiosyncratic charms.