New Music: Cult Of Celebrity

            

Lambrini Girls; The British punks call out hypocritical elites on their first new music since Who Let the Dogs Out, the single "Cult Of Celebrity" sees Phoebe Lunny and Selin Macieira tear into the dark hypocrisy of the wealthy elite, particularly following the headlines of recent years. The new song comes with a devilish music video directed by Harv Frost. Lambrini Girls said when unveiling the track. “However, due to recent events come to light – it turns out that the elite are very much actually the devil incarnate, baby eating, pedos. What a fucking surprise! They had no souls to sell in the first place.”

 

Rocktrospectiva: The Underrated "Villains" Turns 30

Released on 26 March 1996 "Villains" was the 3rd., and first major label release by US alternative rock  band the Verve Pipe. The album contained the band's first hit single, "Photograph", which peaked in the top 10 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks. A year after the release of the album, a reformatted version of "The Freshmen" peaked at number 1 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. The single was also the band's sole appearance in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 5. The success of the song helped this album go Platinum.Other singles taken from the album were "Cup Of Tea" & "Villains". The album remains the Verve Pipe's best-selling album. 

The Verve Pipe made their major-label debut under the direction of producer Jerry Harrison with Villains, recasting themselves in the inauspicious mold of a post-grunge act. On an initial listen, the album does little to distinguish itself from the masses, though patient revisiting reveals a band of more depth, with Brian Vander Ark's songwriting improving vastly over previous albums and more subtle aspects, like the tasteful organic keyboard arrangements, actually adding texture and dimension to the sound. The band seemed to acknowledge the misstep by re-recording "The Freshmen" for single release and subsequent pressings, which ultimately earned them their first national hit. With a raw anger in the vocals and melancholy instrumentation, this  easy album was perfect to relax to or sulk in a depressive state. The interesting  song "Villains" was a comment on the negativity and glorification of criminals on the news which represents the album as a whole, covering dark and depressing themes. In particular many songs on the album were heartbreaking and somber. "The Freshmen" one of the most remarkable songs ever written served as a climax of heartbreak, and the closer "Veneer" which was a sort of fading away and slow death, a fanfare with combined voices, everything fades away as the end comes near.

Considered it a very underrated album and one of the most ideal late 90s post-grunge/alternative rock records ever emerged. Unfortunately the band didn't get enough recognition but at least dropped their mark in the alternative music scene post grunge of the end of the 90s

 

Villains Track List:  

 

1. Barely (If At All)

2. Drive You Mild

3. Villains

4. Reverend Girl

5. Cup Of Tea

6. Myself

7. The Freshmen

8. Photograph

9. Ominous Man

10. Real

11. Penny Is Poison

12. Cattle

13. Veneer 

Rocktrospectiva: The Mature And Edgy "Candy Apple Grey" Turns 40

 

Released on 17 March 1986 "Candy Apple Grey" was the 5th., studio album by the US indie rock band Hüsker Dü, released through Warner Bros. Records. It was the band's first major label release, though Warner Bros. had lobbied to release Flip Your Wig until the band decided to let SST Records have it. The album spawned two singles "Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely" & "Sorry Somehow". 

Candy Apple Grey also marked the completion of the band's transition from hardcore punk to a more well-rounded sonic style which would later come to be known as alternative rock. As usual, Bob Mould and Grant Hart individually wrote tracks on the album. While the band's earlier, more frenetic style is still evident, Another interesting featured was that the band move into a  more introverted, toned-down material, including a relatively large amount of acoustic guitar, although the production was more full-bodied than Spot's razor-thin work. 

Much of Candy Apple Grey chargeed along on the same frenzied beat that propelled New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig, and both Bob Mould and Grant Hart  were in fine form, spinning out fine punk-pop with "Sorry Somehow" and "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely." However, the sound was beginning to seem a bit tired, which is what maked Mould's two acoustic numbers, "Too Far Down" and "Hardly Getting Over It," so welcome. The opening track “Crystal” was a mind boggling scream fest by Mould that is one of the more challenging songs the band ever did. However, a lot of the album was indeed more accessible than the Husker Du of old, but it’s a natural progression rather than a forced one. "Eifel Tower High" was equally as successful, and continued Mould’s unique songwriting structure. 

The singles released from this album were "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely" and "Sorry Somehow", both written and sung by Hart. The latter was accompanied by a promotional video which earned airtime on MTV. Indeed "Candy Apple Grey" was the first Hüsker Dü album to chart on the Billboard Top 200, but despite receiving exposure on radio as well as MTV, it peaked at No. 140. 

 

Candy Apple Grey Track List:  

 

1. Crystal

2. Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely

3. I Don't Know For Sure

4. Sorry Somehow

5. Too Far Down

6. Hardly Getting Over It

7. Dead Set On Destruction

8. Eiffel Tower High

9. No Promise Have I Made

10. All This I've Done For You 

New Music: Sliced By A Fingernail

           

Dry Cleaning have released a new single, "Sliced By a Fingernail." The song comes with an unsettling visualizer by Bullyache, where a dancer takes frontperson Florence Shaw's lyrics quite literally—"Do a headspin / When it's a grubby round ball, grubby round ball"—by... spinning their head in circles on top of a basement washing machine?. The track was inspired by illustrator Jooyoung Kim's Welcome to My Life, a humorous picture book about a dog with a long body. "A lot of attention makes them feel sliced up. So they fantasize about being hidden inside a huge flower bud and about being anonymous in a crowd at night,"nt. 

New Music: Wired

            

Basement have been making waves over the past few years. They have toured consistently with fantastic bands on both headline tours and support tours for behemoths like Turnstile, and also headlined the coveted Outbreak festival in 2024. Now Basement have returned with two singles but we are focused on this "Wired" contain not only the essence of their songwriting, snappy and immediate riffs with a foreboding sense of urgency, only amplified by the relentless hardcore adjacent drums that are expertly coupled with the forlorn and scathing lyricism to create a perfect dichotomy of sound, but a distinct evolution in the mixing and general sound. Both of these tracks sound inherently alive, both with individual identities carried by the heartbeat of the group’s creativity. "Wired" is an expertly dialled-in track that hits top speed before the light has changed. Its shrill and speedy chord progression kicks us into overdrive immediately, keeping the intensity sky high as the distinct and biting vocals begin to viciously serenade the rest of the band as they carry through the verses with haste and break into an explosive pre-chorus, rife with lead lines and vicious blasts of the snare drum. This is basement at its best, and if this is the tempo that they continue to carry forward at, this will no doubt be a huge album for the Ipswich five-piece, the video was directed by Ashley Rommelrath

 

Rocktrospectiva: The Massive And Aclaimed "Joyride" Turns 35

Released on 28 March 1991 "Joyride" was the 3rd., studio album by Swedish pop rock duo Roxette, the album was the follow-up to their international breakthrough Look Sharp! (1988), as well as the non-album single "It Must Have Been Love", from the soundtrack to Pretty Woman (1990). The album spawned five singles "Joyride", "Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)", "The Big L", "Spending My Time" & "Church Of Your Heart". 

The album was recorded over an 11-month period in Sweden. The duo experienced considerable pressure from their record label to deliver a successful follow-up album, and resisted pressure to relocate to Los Angeles and work with experienced American producers.Fortunately for the duo, the album was a critical and commercial success upon release.

Roxette's primary songwriter, Per Gessle, began work on the album in February 1990 at the Tits & Ass recording studio in Halmstad—which he co-founded in 1984 with his then-Gyllene Tider bandmate, lead guitarist Mats "MP" Persson. The pair recorded rough demo versions of ten songs over a three-week period, after which they were joined by vocalist Marie Fredriksson, who then provided input on re-arranging some of the material. By the end of April, the three had completed work on over twenty-five demos.

Work was transferred to EMI Studios in Stockholm in May, where Gessle and Fredriksson were joined by producer Clarence Öfwerman. With the success of previous album Look Sharp! (1988) and its singles, as well as the non-album single "It Must Have Been Love", the duo resisted pressure from record company EMI to relocate to Los Angeles and work with American producers and musicians, opting instead to "develop our own sound" with the Swedish musicians they had worked with previously. 

Gessle has described the pressure to deliver a successful follow-up album as "intense", with EMI investing almost US$2 million on pre-release promotion for Joyride. Gessle later said that he wrote the album with the intention of it sounding "like a greatest hits record. ... It was never a given that Joyride was gonna be a major success just because Look Sharp! sold millions. We were lucky that the Pretty Woman movie happened in between those albums, so the world never got the chance to forget about us! I knew that Joyride had to be really focused with lots of single 'wannabes', so I think I wrote about 30 songs to make it happen. It was fun. All of us were very motivated.

All of the lyrics on the album were written by Gessle, who also composed the majority of its music—with the exception of "Spending My Time", "(Do You Get) Excited?" and "Perfect Day", which were co-composed with Persson; Fredriksson co-wrote the music to one of the album's louder rock songs, "Hotblooded", and is the sole composer of ballad "Watercolors in the Rain". She composed its music using lyrics which were written several years prior by Gessle, who expressed interest in the pair composing this way more regularly on future material, saying: "When it's happening like that [me writing lyrics and Marie composing music], it makes Roxette even better because it widens up what we can do, what kind of music we can make, even more. So I think she should write more." Her limited input in the songwriting of Roxette material stemmed from difficulty with writing English lyrics: she has said that it "feels very strange to write in another language." The song is more folk-orientated than any material previously recorded by the duo, and is indicative of Fredriksson's Swedish-language solo work. 

The title track was released as the album's first single. It became one of Roxette's biggest ever hits, and was one of the most successful singles of 1991. It was the duo's first number one single in their home country, and topped the charts in numerous other territories. The song spent eight weeks at number one in Germany, "Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave)" was released as the second single. It also became a hit, particularly in North America, where it peaked at number two in both Canada and on the US Billboard Hot 100—held off the top spot in both countries by Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". "The Big L." was released as the third single outside of North America in August, peaking within the top twenty of numerous territories.

The end of 1991 saw the merger of the SBK, Chrysalis and EMI record labels to form EMI Records Group North America. The merger resulted in the new company firing over a hundred members of staff, and saw Roxette receiving little support from their new label. Subsequent singles from the album, "Spending My Time" and "Church of Your Heart", peaked at numbers thirty-two and thirty-six, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100—in stark contrast to the duo's previous five singles which all peaked within the top two of the chart.

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, by calling the record the work of "two pop artists at the top of their game", and praised the album's consistency, others compared the band to ABBA, calling them "worthy successors to the tradition of air-headed catchiness set down by their fellow Swedish pop tarts", and complimented the album for an abundance of hooks, by emphasizing its sense of personality, Roxette delivered more than just well-constructed hooks; this music had heart, something that made even the catchiest melody more appealing."

 

Joyride Track List: 

 

1. Joyride

2. Hotblooded

3. Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)

4. Knockin' On Every Door

5. Spending My Time

6. I Remember You

7. Watercolours In The Rain

8. The Big L.

9. Soul Deep

10. (Do You Get) Excited?

11. Church Of Your Heart

12. Small Talk

13. Physical Fascination

14. Things Will Never Be The Same

15. Perfect Day&

Rocktrospectiva: The Vigorous And Innovatie "Discovery" Turns 25

Released on 12 March 2001 "Discovery" was the 2nd., studio album by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk. It marked a shift from the Chicago house style of their first album, Homework, to a house style more heavily inspired by disco, post-disco, garage house, and R&B. Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk described Discovery as an exploration of song structures, musical forms and childhood nostalgia, compared to the "raw" electronic music of Homework.

Discovery was recorded at Bangalter's home in Paris between 1998 and 2000. It features extensive sampling; some samples are from older records, while others were created by Daft Punk. The electronic musicians Romanthony, Todd Edwards, and DJ Sneak collaborated on some tracks. For the music videos, Daft Punk developed a concept involving the merging of science fiction with the entertainment industry. Inspired by their childhood love for Japanese anime, the duo collaborated with Leiji Matsumoto to produce Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, an anime film with Discovery as the soundtrack. The album produced six singles: "One More Time" was the most successful and became a club hit, and also "Aerodynamic", "Digital Love", "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", "Face To Face", & "Something About Us".

Daft Punk recorded Discovery in their studio, Daft House, in Bangalter's home in Paris. Work started in 1998 and lasted two years. Bangalter and Homem-Christo made music together and separately, in a similar process to Homework. Rather than rely on the drum machines typical for house music, the Roland TR-808 and the TR-909, Daft Punk used an Oberheim DMX, a LinnDrum and a Sequential Circuits Drumtraks. They used samplers including the Akai MPC and E-mu SP-1200, Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, vocoders including a Roland SVC-350 and a DigiTech Vocalist, and various phaser effects. They used the pitch-correcting software Auto-Tune on vocals "in a way it wasn't designed to work". Bangalter said: "We're interested in making things sound like something other than what they are. There are guitars that sound like synthesizers, and there are synthesizers that sound like guitars."

Described as a concept album, "Discovery" relates strongly to Daft Punk's childhood memories, incorporating their love of cinema and character. Bangalter said it deals with the duo's experiences growing up in the decade between 1975 and 1985, rather than it just being a tribute to the music of that period. The record was designed to reflect a playful, honest and open-minded attitude toward listening to music. Bangalter compared it to the state of childhood when one does not judge or analyse music. Bangalter noted the stylistic approach was in contrast to that of their previous effort. "Homework [...] was a way to say to the rock kids, like, 'Electronic music is cool'. Discovery was the opposite, of saying to the electronic kids, 'Rock is cool, you know? You can like that.'" He elaborated that Homework had been "a rough and raw thing" focused on sound production and texture; in contrast, the goal of Discovery was to explore song structures and new musical forms, which was inspired by Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker".

The opening track, "One More Time", featured heavily Auto-Tuned and compressed vocals from Romanthony. "Aerodynamic" had a funk groove, an electric guitar solo, and ends with a separate "spacier" electronic segment. The arpeggiated solo was compared to Yngwie Malmsteen, "Digital Love" contains a solo performed on Wurlitzer piano, vintage synthesisers and sequencers; it incorporates elements of pop, new wave, jazz, funk and disco. "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" was an electro song. It is followed by "Crescendolls", an instrumental. "Nightvision" was an ambient track. "Superheroes" leaned toward the "acid minimalism" of Homework. It begins with a drum roll and includes arpeggios that are said to resemble those in the soundtrack to the 1980 film Flash Gordon. "High Life" was built over a "gibberish" vocal sample and contains an organ-like section."Something About Us" was a downtempo song, with digitally processed vocals and lounge rhythms.

"Voyager" had guitar riffs, harp-like 80s synths, and a funky bassline. "Veridis Quo" was a "faux-orchestral" synthesiser baroque song; according to Angus Harrison, its title is a pun on the words "very disco". "Short Circuit" was an electro-R&B song with breakbeats and programmed drum patterns. "Face to Face" was a dance-pop song featuring vocals from Todd Edwards and was more pop-oriented than the other tracks on Discovery. "Too Long", the final track, was a ten-minute-long electro-R&B song.

Discovery used a number of samples. The liner notes credit samples from "I Love You More" by George Duke on "Digital Love", "Cola Bottle Baby" by Edwin Birdsong on "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", "Can You Imagine" by The Imperials on "Crescendolls", and "Who's Been Sleeping In My Bed" by Barry Manilow on "Superheroes". "One More Time" contains a sample of the 1979 disco song "More Spell on You" by Eddie Johns. Daft Punk pay royalties to the publishing company that owns the rights, but Johns has never been located; as of 2021, he was owed an estimated "six-to-seven-figure sum" based on streams. Edwards recalled that he and Daft Punk curated 70 samples each to incorporate into "Face to Face".

The ideas for music videos formed during the early Discovery recording sessions. The album was originally intended to be accompanied by "a live-action film with each song being a part of the film", according to Todd Edwards. Daft Punk decided instead to concentrate on an anime production. Their concept involved the merging of science fiction with entertainment industry culture. The duo recalled watching Japanese anime as children, including favourites such as Captain Harlock, Grendizer, and Candy Candy. Daft Punk brought the album and the completed story to Tokyo in the hope of creating the film with their childhood hero, Leiji Matsumoto, who had created Captain Harlock. After Matsumoto joined the team as visual supervisor, Shinji Shimizu had been contacted to produce the animation and Kazuhisa Takenouchi to direct the film. With the translation coordination of Tamiyuki "Spike" Sugiyama, production began in October 2000 and ended in April 2003. The result of the collaboration was an anime film, Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, which features the entirety of Discovery as the soundtrack. 

Discovery has continued to accumulate praise since, being widely regarded as among the greatest albums of all time, and is credited for its influence on electronic and pop production over subsequent decades.

 

Discovery Track List: 

 

1. One More Time

2. Aerodynamic

3. Digital Love

4. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

5. Crescendolls

6. Nightvision

7. Superheroes

8. High Life

9. Something About Us

10. Voyager

11. Veridis Quo

12. Short Circuit

13. Face To Face

14. Too Long

Rocktrospectiva: The Distinctive "Jailbreak" Turns 50

Released on 26 March 1976 "Jailbreak" was the 6th., studio album by Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy. The album proved to be the band's commercial breakthrough in the US, and the only Thin Lizzy album with a certification (in this case, Gold) in that country. The singles taken from the album include "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back in Town"; the latter is Thin Lizzy's biggest US hit, and won the 1976 NME Award for Best Single. 

After their previous two albums, Nightlife and Fighting, failed to generate sales, Thin Lizzy were given one last chance by their label, Vertigo Records. The band wrote songs and collected ideas in a studio in Buckinghamshire in late 1975, then convened at Ramport Studios in London in the new year. They selected John Alcock as their producer, for he had worked in the studio extensively. The band worked diligently through February on the album. However, guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson felt that the speed at which it was completed adversely affected its quality. Both stated that the tightness of the songs made the album feel rigid. In particular, Robertson said he would have liked more freedom to improvise his lead guitar parts. Gorham also criticized Alcock's production, saying that he did not particularly care for his guitar tone on the album.

Even Phil Lynott added: "When I wrote '"Warriors", "the only way I could give any sense of heavy drug takers was by describing them as warriors; that they actually go out and do it. People like Hendrix and Duane Allman were perfectly aware of the position they were getting into. They weren't slowly being hooked. It was a conscious decision to go out and take the thing as far as it can go."

Initially, the song "Running Back" was chosen to be a single ahead of "The Boys Are Back in Town", the latter being seen as possibly too aggressive for some radio stations to play. Lynott and producer John Alcock decided to employ session musicians to add more commercial elements to some of the tracks and try to produce a hit single, so Tim Hinkley was brought in to add keyboard parts to "Running Back". Robertson was against the idea, as he liked the song as it had originally been arranged, in a blues format with his own additions of piano and bottleneck guitar. He later said, "I took enormous offence to [the changes]. I couldn't understand why they'd pay this guy a fortune just for playing what he did. Listen to it and tell me it's not bollocks." Robertson did not play on the finished version of the song and Hinkley is not credited on the album sleeve. Lynott said at the time that "Running Back" was "very much influenced by Van Morrison. I really like that song." Hinkley later recalled, "Robbo and Scott were not keen on it at all but they were overruled." Scott Gorham also revealed that "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" was also brought up as an option for a single, but was ultimately discarded, as "nobody was overexcited about it."

Some critics likened the album by considered 'em as Bruce Springsteen cast-offs, also referred back to Christgau's appraisal, and that both Springsteen and Lynott "were indebted to Van Morrison and his Celtic soul", and remarked how on Jailbreak "Lynott's best attributes were coming on strong." Some retrospective reviews described "Jailbreak" as a truly exceptional album, with a dimension of richness that sustains, but there's such kinetic energy to the band that it still sounds immediate no matter how many times it's played. Highlighting Lynott's songs as "lovingly florid... crammed with specifics and overflowing with life", and Gorham and Robertson's guitar work as intertwined, dual-lead guitar interplay that was one of the most distinctive sounds of '70s rock".

 

Jailbreak Track List:  

 

1. Jailbreak

2. Angel From The Coast

3. Running Back

4. Romeo And The Lonely Girl

5. Warriors

6. Thoe Boys Are Back In Town

7. Fight Or Fall

8. Cowboy Song

9. Emerald

Rocktrospectiva: The Notable And Commercially Succesful "Strange Free World" Turns 35

Released on 19 February 1991 "Strange Free World" was the 2nd., studio album by British alternative rock band Kitchens of Distinction. It was the follow-up to their 1989 debut Love Is Hell. Noted producer Hugh Jones, who worked with Echo & the Bunnymen helped the band to sound more at ease in the studio. The album spawned two singles "Quick As Rainbows" & "Drive That Fast".

With the help of noted producer Hugh Jones, the Kitchens sounded and felt more comfortable with the studio and just plain bigger. The amazing opener, "Railwayed," started with a sweet, echoed guitar riff aiming for the heavens above a brisk rhythm exchange then kicks into a catchy chorus. Following that, the re-recording of their early single "Quick as Rainbows" turned out even better, combining a great lyric melody, reflecting on a person's inability to find love, delivered with Fitzgerald's trademark dry yet emotional voice -- with ripping music, building higher and higher as the song goes until Swales' guitar beautifully explodes over everything down to the final angry lyric. 

Fitzgerald's gay-themed lyrics seemed almost more urgent and in many ways more powerful as on the forceful declaration of "Gorgeous Love" in the face of homophobia and in the sad, angry reflection on the past captured only in "Polaroids."  Musically, the tunes were quite ambitious in many ways, often steering away from conventional verse-chorus-verse formulas; "Aspray" was a fine example, ending with a repeated chant of "Beach/Burned/Nausea!" while guitars crashed like waves. World ends excellently, with the band's best tune, "Drive that Fast"(a hymn to escape and self-determination that charges forward and takes no prisoners, leading into the love-drunk "Within the Daze of Passion" and the slower-paced but still big-sounding "Under the Sky, Inside the Sea," with trumpets by Kick Horns member Roddy Lorimar. 

Considered one of the best 50 shoegaze album of all time, the album was an excellent effort at the time for the band and due of this, the record was  considered one of the group's best works, as well as possibly its most popular and commercially successful, peaking at number 45 on the UK Albums Chart. The album also includes their first UK charting single "Drive That Fast," which peaked at number 93 on the UK singles chart. 

 

Strange Free World Track List:  

 

1. Railwayed

2. Quick As Rainbows

3. Hypnogogic

4. He Holds Her, He Needs Her

5. Polaroids

6. Gorgeous Love

7. Aspray

8. Drive That Fast

9. Within The Daze Of Passion

10. Under The Sky, Inside The Sea

The Documentary/News: A New Wham! In China Documentary On The Way

Filmmaker Mike Christie has confirmed that he has directed a new feature length documentary about Wham!’s visit to China in 1985.

"Wham! 10 Days In China" is a 90-minute documentary that pieces together "the untold story" using newly restored footage alongside new and extensive, personal interviews from Andrew Ridgeley, members of the touring party, as well as some of the fans who made up the Chinese audiences whose experiences.

On his Instagram page, Christie says "It's been a long haul to make, but a fascinating, very entertaining, and surprising film!"

On their famous 10-day visit to China in '85, Wham! played two concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou (on 7th and 10th of April). The trip was documented by Palme D'Or winning film director Lindsay Anderson – best known for If (1968) and O Lucky Man! (1973) – but his 77 minute cut, called If You Were There, was rejected by the band. Anderson was let go and the film was re-edited and released on VHS and laserdisc as Wham! In China: Foreign Skies. The original If You Were There got its first (and probably last) public screening at London’s BFI (British Film Theatre) in 2024 as part of its O Dreamland! Lindsay Anderson’s Dark British Cinema season.

Director Mike Christie has a history of music documentaries. He made 2018’s Suede: The Insatiable Ones film, New Order: Decades (also 2018) and last year’s Nick Cave: Veiled World. Wham! 10 Days In China follows Chris Smith’s highly enjoyable Wham! documentary from 2023, which also featured a high profile participation from Andrew Ridgeley.