Melody Maker, 15 February 1986: Marc Almond flashback – From Gutterheart to Willing Sinner; The Vinyl Conflict EP, Housemartins, Red Wedge on tour, Simple Minds, Sigue Sigue Sputnik

Melody Maker, 15 February 1986 (45p weekly; Australia $1.00, New Zealand $1.25, Malaysia $2.75, USA $2.25 by air), the British weekly music paper, with a painted portrait of Marc Almond on the cover. Cover stories: 'Flashback – Marc Almond: From Gutterheart to Willing Sinner, frame by frame', a look back over the career of the former Soft Cell singer, then fronting Marc Almond and the Willing Sinners; 'The Vinyl Conflict', the issue's free EP featuring Marc Almond and the Willing Sinners, Cactus World News, The Men They Couldn't Hang and The Housemartins (the cover notes that the EP was available to UK readers only); Simple Minds; 'Red Wedge on tour'; 'Sigue Sigue [Sputnik] – the video terminators'; and a 16-page Musik Messe Frankfurt preview, covering the annual musical instruments trade fair. The issue appeared in the middle of the Red Wedge tour of early 1986, when Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and others toured Britain in support of the Labour Party, and in the weeks of the hype surrounding Sigue Sigue Sputnik's debut single 'Love Missile F1-11'. The Vinyl Conflict EP brought together four acts on the rise in 1986: The Housemartins from Hull, the folk-punk Men They Couldn't Hang, Dublin's Cactus World News and Marc Almond himself. Published by IPC Magazines, London. Newsprint, tabloid format, about 29 x 40 cm, with the Musik Messe preview section. A collectable issue for Marc Almond and Soft Cell fans and for anyone interested in British pop and politics in the mid-1980s. THEMES: Marc Almond, Soft Cell, The Willing Sinners, The Housemartins, The Men They Couldn't Hang, Cactus World News, Red Wedge, Billy Bragg, Simple Minds, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Melody Maker, 1980s music press.

Author: Melody Maker

Publisher: Melody Maker/IPC Magazines

Publication Date: 1986

Binding: Single Issue Magazine

Condition: Used - Good