Rough Trade Records are excited to announce a remastered reissue of Scritti Politti’s classic debut album Songs To Remember, will be released on 10th April.
The debut album of one of Britain’s most acclaimed and influential bands, Songs to Remember takes us back to the beginnings of Scritti Politti. Having emerged out of the DIY Camden bedsit scene of the late 70s, with a musical vision to match the likes of Miles Davis (who they later worked with), the Green Gartside-led group established themselves as one of the early 80s’ true musical innovators with Songs To Remember uniquely melding philiosophical thinking with a burgeoning pop sensibility. Described as “witty and ingenious” by NME on its release in 1982, the album has since been established as a truly groundbreaking album of its era. The audio has been fully remastered for this reissue and long overdue vinyl repress by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios, overseen by Gartside himself.
Originally released as cat.no. ROUGH20 in September 1982, the album reached number 12 in the UK Album Charts and featured three classic singles, ‘The Sweetest Girl’, ‘Faithless’ and ‘Jacques Derrida’. The album will be released on digital and CD formats and will finally be available again on vinyl format featuring an embossed sleeve, including a pictogram of a bee in the front corner of the cover, in line with the original 1982 pressing.
“Mark E Smith a Rough Trade artist at the time once said to me, ” Scritti have the best rhythm section in rock music.” He didn’t mention Green Gartside, so I don’t know what he thought of him. I do know that at Rough Trade we were all in thrall to Green’s honeyed voice and his brilliant lyric writing. These were heady days when the amount of sheer talent walking into the Rough Trade universe was simply overwhelming. None more so than Green who epitomised the intelligent assault on the citadel of pop music perfection. I remember being very proud of Songs To Remember during a time when it was still a fairly new experience for us to be releasing full albums into the world.” – Geoff Travis
SCRITTI POLITTI
SONGS TO REMEMBER
RT0565LP
LP
ALBUM TRACKLIST
Asylums in Jerusalem
A Slow Soul
Jacques Derrida
Lions After Slumber
Faithless
Sex
Rock-A-Boy Blue
Getting’ Havin’ & Holdin’
The Sweetest Girl
Praise for Scritti Politti and Songs To Remember
“This album should be considered one of the most important in musical history for bridging the gap between two long-separated disciplines: pop and philosophy.” – Pop Matters
“Valiantly spot-welding such rarified tropes [as Derrida and digital dancehall] to an unsuspecting pop chassis … Lovers Rock and Left Bank intellectualism have rarely combined more fruitfully.” – MOJO
“Trademark Scritti Politti from the start, all unlikely musical fusions (vocoder-gospel, anyone?), lilting melodies, winsome wit and wonderful invention … [it] sounds as delightfully undateable as it did back in 1982 …Songs to Remember remains a well-named, well-made record” – Q Magazine
“Gartside still possesses one of the most unashamedly lovely voices in British rock” – The Times
“They don’t make pop stars like Green Gartside anymore” – NME
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