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Sam Brown / The A&M Years 1988-1990

By Paul Sinclair

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64

Be first in line to secure a SIGNED copy of this forthcoming box

Full details will be announced later this week, but SDE can exclusively reveal the cover art to The A&M Years 1988-1990 a five-disc box set that will feature the early output of British singer-songwriter Sam Brown (best known for her 1988 international hit Stop).

The box set has been an 18-month labour of love and has been curated by me (SDE Editor, Paul Sinclair), with the full support and enthusiasm of Sam Brown. It includes newly mastered versions of the albums Stop! (1988) and April Moon (1990) and three further discs offering B-sides, unreleased demos and a DVD of promo videos.

Sam Brown will be signing a limited number of these box sets which will be available soon (not yet) through SDE’s box set store ShopSuperDeluxe.com

If you would like to be first in line to secure a limited signed set (we will alert you even before the link is published on SDE) then simply add yourself to the Sam Brown mailing list below (you will get a confirmation email, so do check spam folder if you can’t find it).

The A&M Years 1988-1990 will be released by Caroline International in December. More details coming very soon!


If you have any issues with the above, then this link will take you to sign-up form.

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64 Comments

64 thoughts on “Sam Brown / The A&M Years 1988-1990”

  1. PLEASE can we have vinyl issues of Sam’s brilliant work! I can only pick up Stop & April Moon second hand. I have Of The Moment on CD, but I’d rather it was on vinyl!! Any possible news on this?

  2. Can’t believe I let this pass me by! I’m usually on top of these things but somehow failed to see anything about this. Suppose I will just have to make do with the unsigned edition. Looking forward to hearing them.

    1. A signed edition would have been lovely – wouldn’t it just! But it isn’t to be sadly Ian (we missed the boat there). It’s amazing how short lived the signing of them was! But if I (like you) would have looked sooner (prior to/in advance of the release), we may well have struck lucky lol But it’s still an incredible box – nonetheless!!!

  3. Cannot wait for this release! It’ll definitely make for the perfect Xmas pressie – if it makes it out at the right time!! Even better if I can get my hands on one that Sam signed!! What an absolutely brilliant box set (not before time!!). Hopefully the rest of her career will get the expanded attention it deserves in the near future!!

    1. I was telling Sam she should put 43 Minutes out on vinyl (and reissue on CD). Pete thinks they should remix it too. Hopefully this box is the start of other stuff.

      1. HOPEFULLY! I also must check, if there are any errors in the box set, like with the Dead Or Alive and Yazz one they state have had replaced discs by the company!! I bet you won’t have played yours all the way through yet Paul – but let me know!! That for me is the b all and end all in terms of me going through with the ordering process of such an amazing release!!

  4. Great news. I hope the video of “Tea” is included, probably the shortest promotional videos there is. Will the contents be available in streaming services, for some reason Stop is on Spotify but April moon is not.

  5. I’m similarly thrilled to see this box set near completion and sale.. It’s wonderful to know she’s still spoken of and her music is worthy of such a collection – she really didn’t get the kudos she deserved from the mainstream. She was more than just a bubblegum pop star like many of her contemporaries. I feel lucky to have seen her live three times…and once she had a toilet roll on top of her piano ‘in case of emergencies’ so she said..lol

    I l0ok forward to hearing tracks such as ‘The Tune With No Name’ after so many years in pristine quality and all the extras. So nice of her to contribute to things as well – I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about her own musical past. Bring it on!!

  6. Thank you for doing this Paul (and Sam!) … I’m SO excited for this; I really never thought a remaster would happen. AND to get all (all?) the B-Sides in one place is awesome.

    I wrote Sam when I was a teenager and asked her for a B-Side collection. She wrote back and said it was a great idea and she’d see what she could do. Only took about 25 years but I’m patient and thankful! LOL

    That letter from Sam is a prized possession of mine.

    Thanks again! Kel.

    1. No, but it will be the only place you can get the signed version. Sorry Russia is not on the list, will see what I can do about fixing that.

  8. Thanks very much for all your work Paul on this (and Sam too, of course). Much appreciated. Saw Sam perform once when I was living in London in 1990 – I have seen a lot of concerts in my 51 years and her show still ranks as once of the strongest voices I have heard live. Looking forward to the release. Keep up the good work.

  9. Interesting to note that on the label for just 3 years and managed to crank out 4 CDS of music. True. That was the age of b’sides and mixes.

  10. April Moon is the one CD I bought from Universal Music’s first ‘print on demand’ service. (and then picked it up in it’s original form with proper sleeve, etc) from eBay for cheaper.

    I’ve always thought “Kissing Gate” is a weird piece of songwriting, both with it’s structure (Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Middle 8, Solo, Choruses) and the placement of the (only) verse being way way way up in Sam’s breathy head voice. Check out the live version on youtube where she sings it an octave lower for an interesting contrast.

    Anyway, I’m looking forwards to this box set a lot. Hopefully the DVD will be vids and live stuff. She was great live.

    “43 minutes” is the album of hers that I’d really like to see a deluxe re-release of.

    1. Sam talks about all the tracks on both albums in the sleeve notes, so she explains a little bit about the background of Kissing Gate in there.

  11. Hey, Paul :)
    Glad to know about the shop! Do you plan to sell Edsel releases too? What about all those nice Universal box sets (Simple Minds, The Verve, Tears for Fears, Simple Minds, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions)?

    1. Thanks. Possibly. Trying to do things that I know will interest the SDE audience and are either a good bargain, out of print, or exclusive in some way.

      1. Great! :)
        I do have some suggestions for rare stuff: the deluxe 2-CD editions of the first four John Foxx albums and the Suede CD singles box set.
        As for exclusives, it’d be nice to finally get the 2-CD editions of Land and 7-Day Weekend that were promised by Edsel and subsequently cancelled. Who knows, maybe you could make these finally happen :)

  14. Is it just me or is this sentence missing a word? If you would like to BE first in line to secure a limited signed set .. other than that a great job on this release.

  15. Thank you!! Was looking forward to this! I love those 2 albums! I haven’t heard some of the b-sides for ages and I’ve always wondered if Tender Hearts had different versions as it appeared on two singles (only had the 12″ for ‘Once In Your Life’ which I lost somehow). Can’t wait to listen to the other b-sides I missed at the time. I still have the VHS of the promo videos and it will be nice to get the dvd (with some extras – live tv appearances, I hope!). I also have the fab promo box for April Moon which contains the cd and the tape (never listened to the tape actually!).
    Thanks again!

  16. Great effort Paul. Thank you. Do you See any chance of contributing to a Black / The A&M years Compilation? There are so many unrealeased B-sides, live Tracks and mixes especially from The Comedy LP. This may be a great oportunity.

  17. Paul,
    Nice one, for getting this box set up and running. Sam has a great voice as you well know but sadly through ill health, I gather, she had to stop singing which led her to playing the ukelele with a bunch of uke lovers! What’s the latest on Sam, is she any where near back to vocalising again? I hope so, she really is an underrated, truly gifted talent. Joe must be proud as anything of his daughter.
    Thanks.

    1. Sam doesn’t sing any more due to problems she’s had with her vocal chords. A very cruel thing to have happened, given that her voice was her livelihood and such beautiful instrument. But as you say she’s a Ukulele guru now and teaches and inspires many people to play.

  18. I am very excited about this. Not a month goes by without me listening to the April Moon album at least once, so I am really looking forward to the remastered version. IMO there is not a weak song on that album.
    Thank you so much Paul (and Sam).

  19. Interested in this since I knew about her, but don’t really know her music (and Paul being involved ups the trustworthiness vastly lol). Will definitely look into it. I mainly know her through her collaboration with Black’s Colin Vearncombe on Fly Up To The Moon.

    Also happy to see lots of mentions of Carmel, one of my faves. Their six albums were re-released a few years ago with b-sides and so on added on as bonus tracks on Drumfire Records, so I can’t see them being released again so soon, and considering their (criminally underrated) popularity. I have these, so now I have the unadulterated urge to listen to them all right now!!

  21. Not keen on the front photographs with her mouth open and looking as though she is out in the wind. Hopefully the bonus music content to the original albums will make up for it as I will certainly be updating them to this release.

    1. Could be worse, how about a still from Floyd’s Pulse DVD feature ‘Say goodbye to life as we know it’ where Sam is shown with a gob full of pizza!

    2. It’s not been a good year for cover artwork, and this one is no exception. The image below it from the ‘Stop’ video would have been a better choice, let alone anything else. But even without seeing a track list this is a must-have. A truly wonderful talent. Whilst here, as ever when it’s to do with the 80s, Paul – please see what you can do with Bliss!

  22. Lovely and i have signed up, now when is somebody going to do something similar
    for Carmel? Criminally underrated and in an alternate universe she and Sam would be
    superstars and Adele would be singing in the Queen Vic with Dot cotton!

  25. Ahh, Stop and the Sensual World got me through a very dark patch in my life. Basically finished Uni and had to go get a job. V.V. painful. Driving around to Sam’s lovely voice. Sam and a very underrated Northern Irish (I think) singer called Jackie Quinn were my favourites of the time.

    1. The full track listing will be published in a few days. Don’t think anyone will be disappointed. 16 previously unreleased tracks in total.

    2. She’s the daughter of early 60s British rocker Joe Brown. In a well ordered world, Sam Brown would have been bigger than Adele, because she’s much better. Off topic, but I’d love to see some re-issues/remasters of Carmel’s music, another bluesy/soul talent whose career never reached the heights that it should have.

        1. Do you really think it’s necessary to dis one artist for getting deserved attention for another? I guess we all know there are lots of artists out there who don’t get the attention they should be getting but there’s surely no need to insult others just for getting noticed. Oh, and Paul: Nice job, i surely will look into this.

    3. If you have Deep Purple at Albert Hall, she’s singing “Wait A While”.
      If you have Pink Floyd Pulse, or David Gilmour Live In Concert, she’s leads the backing vocalists.
      If you have Concert For George, she sings “Horse To The Water”.

      If you have none of the above, you’re in for quite a treat…..

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