S/D Marc Almond

About eight thousand albums, most of which are great. ;-)

This thread has some general tips:

Marc Almond, Obscure or Obscene?

Beyond that, hmm. The catalog is so vast and varied that it's hard to nail down things in particular. Give me a sec here.

Ultimately I'm not sure if there's even one compilation of his solo stuff that covers every phase -- in fact, I'm positive there isn't. So dipping in and out of his work might be the best approach. If you liked the Marc and the Mambas stuff, try Untitled and Torment and Toreros for more. Beyond that, I'd recommend these four albums as general starting points:

Mother Fist -- the closest he got to a Jacques Brel cabaret album before actually covering Brel fully on the Jacques collection. Dark, sly, enticing, a tour de force.

The Stars We Are -- of the really big splashy pop albums he's done this is probably still the most successful, not least for that cover of "Something's Got a Hold of My Heart" with Gene Pitney.

Open All Night -- his *cough* trip-hop album, but before you have a fit, it's more like a borrowing of a musical mood that dovetails nicely with his own general meanderings

Heart on Snow -- his Russian album, consisting of a slew of covers of Russian songs (often with their composers or most famous interpreters) plus a couple of originals. I honestly don't think there's anything quite like this that's been recorded in the English language, at least.

That said, I really could just keep going on and on, and the self-released live albums and demos and etc. just add to it all. I would say that you don't offhand need Enchanted, Fantastic Star or Glorious until/unless you enter into full on Marc obsession, though each have some excellent singles. Keep an eye out for the two discs of A Virgin's Tale, collecting almost all the B-sides from his stint on Virgin, as there's some amazing stuff buried there.

I'd recommend 'Stories Of Johnny' as a good place to start, along with the Marc & The Mambas 'untitled' album then maybe Mother Fist and Vermine In Ermine. I remember liking The Stars We Are but now I can't remember a single song from it. His output has been patchy at best but there are gems to be found on most albums.

While I'm here, if anyone could YSI the two bonus tracks from Stories Of Johnny that were originally on the cassette release I'd be rather grateful: Stories Of Johnny and Love Letters featuring a school choir (Westminster City School Choir unless my memory fails me).

I'll look into that later today. And yes, Stories and Vermin are both spiff, but I was aiming for an all-over view. ;-)

It was a track from Unititled that I heard - a long track - something to do with twilight - hang on let me check...Twilights and Lowlifes. Funnily enough I looked back through my vinyl and found I did have a Marc Almond solo single I had forgotten about - a 12" of Jacky produced by Trevor Horn of all people and dynamite disco trance rock-out it is too. Thanks for the suggestions - I'll get on them.