NEW STATE MUSIC SET TO RELEASE
‘D:REAM: THE BEST THING’ ON DECEMBER 8TH
A NEW COLLECTION OF THEIR BIGGEST HITS
REMASTERED FROM THE ORIGINAL TAPES
INCLUDES PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED LIVE TRACKS
+ UNRELEASED REMIXES FROM SASHA, LEFTFIELD, MK, SURE IS PURE & JOY
+ TWO BRAND NEW REMIXES FROM MARK KNIGHT AND ILLYUS & BARRIENTOS
New State Music have announced the release of ‘D:Ream: The Best Thing’, a collection of the dance music duo’s biggest hits remastered from the original two-inch tapes, available December 8th on double CD and digital formats.
The album also includes unreleased live versions of tracks from their 1995 Shepherds Bush Empire gig, three unreleased demos including the original instrumental version of “Things Can Only Get Better”, two newly commissioned remixes from Mark Knight and Illyus & Barrientos, and some re-found unreleased remixes from the archive by Sasha, Leftfield, MK, Sure is Pure and The Joy.
Sometimes a band can achieve immortality with a single track, one song that lives on for eternity and which always plugs the listener back into a particular moment in time. For D:Ream, that song is “Things Can Only Get Better”, which has returned to the charts on no fewer than three occasions; first in 1992, when it reached number 16, then a year later when it spent four weeks at number one, and again in 1997 when it was adopted by New Labour ahead of its landslide election victory.
But, as this collection attests, there was always so much more to D:Ream than one classic song. “We’ve been going for over 30 years now, and we’ve written a lot of songs,” says singer Peter Cunnah. “But unlike many bands of a certain vintage, we’ve never just relied on the hits, and we’ve never stopped writing. Today, me and Al (co-member Alan Mackenzie) are batting at a much higher level than we ever did back in the day.”
There’s a pertinent reason for the collection coming out now. “30 years is quite the anniversary, and everybody likes to celebrate an anniversary, right?” says Cunnah. “Assembling all the tracks made us very aware of the passage of time. To go this long is an achievement, and we wanted to celebrate that. It’s left us feeling nostalgic and proud but has also fuelled us to do more.”
Cunnah’s first band was a guitar act, Tie The Boy, who signed to U2’s label, Mother Records, in the late 1980s. However, Cunnah was getting increasingly into dance music and after the band split he decamped from Dublin to London to start again. Here he met Alan Mackenzie a dance music head obsessed with old soul, and the two of them clicked. The first they wrote together was “U R The Best Thing”, which would go on to become D:Ream’s first hit, reaching number 19 in 1992.
The following year their platinum-selling debut album ‘D:Ream On Volume One’ made D:Ream pop stars. Arena tours followed – their live band included future TV physicist Brian Cox on keyboards – alongside support slots for Take That, and endless TV appearances.
Cunnah, always a pop star at heart, thrived in his new role, Mackenzie less so. “I always knew that Things… would be a hit record,” he says, “so it was hugely satisfying when it went to number one, and then seemed to hang around the charts forever. But after a while I got sick of it all. I didn’t like being part of the pop machine. I just wanted to make tunes and have a laugh.”
And so Mackenzie and Cunnah went their separate ways, with Peter recording the follow-up, 1995’s ‘World’, without Alan. They would work apart for 15 years. In 2008, they inadvertently bumped into one another. In place of any lurking bad blood, however, was simply the conviction that they were better together than apart. Their friendship rekindled in an instant, and D:Ream were back.
“We still had that connection,” Cunnah says, “and now we were working together more closely, a much more 50-50 split. It’s helped us enormously and made us a better band.”
They’ve released two further albums – In Memory Of in 2011, and Open Hearts Open Minds a decade later. A third is pending. Meanwhile, they tour all the time. “We love playing the hits, it’s always so much fun to bring so much joy, but for us it’s very much about the new music,” Cunnah says. “Compiling the greatest hits really did fuel our creativity. Making new music doesn’t just give us a sense of purpose, it helps make the world make sense. Having been going for 30 years now, we’d like to continue for at least another 20. We’ve an army of loyal fans who are eager to hear everything we do, and we appreciate that.”
D:Ream ‘The Best Thing’ Track Listing:
CD01
01 Things Can Only Get Better
02 U R The Best Thing
03 Take Me Away
04 Unforgiven
05 Star
06 I Like it
07 Blame it on Me
08 Shoot Me With Your Love (Loveland’s Pop’d Up Mix)
09 Party Up The World
10 Take Me Away (Live from Shepherd Bush 1995)
11 U R The Best Thing (Live from Shepherd Bush 1995)
CD02
01 Things Can Only Get Better (Demo Mix)
02 Dazed & Confused (Demo)
03 99% (Demo)
04 Things Can Only Get Better (MK Dub Mix)
05 U R The Best Thing (Sasha Instrumental)
06 Things Can Only Get Better (Mark Knight Remix)
07 U R The Best Thing (Illyus & Barrientos Remix)
08 I Like It – (Sure Is Pure Remix)
09 U R The Best Thing (Perfecto Remix)
10 Unforgiven (Leftfield Hands Remix)
11 Blame It On Me (The Herbal Mix)