Classic compilation Pillows & Prayers gets a deluxe reissue

Jan 27, 2024

Various artists – Pillows & Prayers

Cherry Red

3 CD boxset

Out now.

Pillows & Prayers cost 99p and remains the best compilation record ever issued by a British record label. On its 30th anniversary Cherry Red issues a deluxe 3 CD box offering extra tracks from all the artists who made it

99p.

You can't even buy a burger in McDonalds with that these days, but way back in 1982 fledgling label Cherry Red took a real punt putting their Pillows & Prayers compilation album offering 17 eclectic tracks for less than a quid.

It worked as over 100,000 punters – including an 18 year old me – wandered into their local record shop with a pound note (yep, it was that long ago) to have their minds blown by a truly eclectic compilation that remains by some distance the best ever released by a British label.

Remember music fans like me were still making sense of punk, so being exposed to some genuinely strange music was pretty mind-blowing, and on the whole Pillows and Prayers has stood the test of time.

In many ways despite its diverse musical palate Pillows & Prayers practically invented indie as an idea, and would lead almost directly to the indie DIY scene created by the likes of Alan McGee in London's Wardrobe club. You may, or may not, think that's a good thing, but if you want to understand Britpop then this is a good place to start.

CD1 is the actual Pillows & Prayers, plus some extra tracks from labelmates that were probably near misses, which given its massive success were career defining moments. Ironically side one kicks with one of the more boring tracks as Five of Six is bog standard jazzy pop. Thankfully the literate pop of Monochrome Set's Eine Smyphonie picks up the pace and is still glorious, as is Thomas Lear's offering All About You, which is classic early 80s new romantic tinged pop.

This album is nothing if not wide ranging as things slow down with Tracey Thorn's Plain Sailing, which is an early indicator of her distinctive voice, and shows where Everything But The Girl came from. Lost talent Kevin Coyne's Love in Your Heart is a smoky blues before a minute or so of Piero Milesi's experimental Modi 2 (Extract), which turned me on to minimalism. Joe Crow's Compulsion has a touch of the emerging Sheffield electro scene emerging around that time

The track that really turned my head back in 1983, and almost the blueprint for the coming indie scene, was Felt's still brilliant My Face Is On Fire, which is so good it remains baffling why bandleader Lawrence never became the superstar he wanted to be. The other undoubted masterpiece on this record is the bouncy electro pop of The Passage's XOYO, that is by far the most commercial track.

Early Everything But The Girl made an appearance as Ben Watt and Thorn perform a jazzy, summery duet On My Mind, but thankfully they later decided to focus on the female vocals for their hit records. Poetry might be hip now, but back in Thatcher's era it was out of fashion, so full marks to Harlow's Attila the Stockbroker for inventing ranting poetry as a form, and his A Bang And A Wimpy amusingly describes avoiding being beaten up by some teen scumbags.

These days Cherry Red does a brilliant job of repackaging classic albums, so it's no surprise they included The Misunderstood's sixties psychedelia before some angular post punk from Brummies’ The Nightingales. Another track that really sticks in my mind was Quentin Crisp's arch Stop The Music For A Minute, and you can't overstate how important it was to my generation to hear an openly gay man on a record. Don't forget this was only months before Thatcher brought in the homophobic Section 28 forbidding the discussion of sexuality in schools.

The extra tracks include a remixed Dead Kennedy's punchy Too Drunk Too Fuck, but the others are a bit nondescript so it's not surprising they didn't make the final cut.

CD2 is a welcome reissue of the ultra-rare Japanese Pillows and Prayers II, and lord knows what music fans in Tokyo and beyond made of this very British record. Hopefully their minds were as blown as ours by the first record.

A case in point is opener Marine Girls’ A Place In The Sun, which is breezy indie pop that is so British it hurts as is Jane's still breath-taking acapella It's A Fine Day that must have influenced Suzanne Vega. Eyeless in Gaza are on better form on this disc with their 60s pop tinged New Risen. Grab Grab The Haddock's I’m Used Now may be forgettable indie pop, but they are contenders for worst band name ever.

This CD really gets going with the sophisticated pop of Monochrome Set's jaunty Jet Set Junta with one of the all-time great indiepop hooks before another reminder of the consistent genius of Felt on the more mournful Penelope Tree, which is by some distance the best song on version 2. Creation Rebel are atypical for these releases, but Love I Can Feel has a touch of Aswad's breezy reggae pop about it, and Martyn Bates’ Cut Like Sunset is a super example of 80s electropop.

Disc 2 goes a bit crazy at the end with Jane teaming up with fellow iconoclast Ed Barton for low fi masterpiece I Want To Be With You before Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman camply romp through their unlikely hit Kinky Boots, which could only have been recorded in the 60s as Mr Steer talks his way through the record. It all ends with The Compassion and Humanity of Margaret Thatcher, which suitably is 1 minute 20 seconds of silence.

The final disc is a collection of live tracks and John Peel sessions featuring acts from both Pillows and Prayers releases. There's another previously unreleased acapella from Jane on Don't Say It before the Monochrome Set prove what a formidable live act they were on Cast A Long Shadow. The Passage offers four tracks from a Peel session, including Man Of War with some added guitar.

Attila The Stockbroker is still on the road four decades on and his version of Death In Bromley for Peel is a telling indictment on suburban life – although younger listeners will wonder who Willy Whitelaw was. In contrast Attila's The Night I Slept With Steven Wells – who used to write for the NME – is a bit of an industry in-joke. The Nightingales rough things up on their peel session, including the odd OK Corale The Crunch, that offers a template for later bands like the Weddoes.

It would have been easy for Cherry Red to just stick out a single CD version of this incredibly influential record, but they have done it justice including extensive sleeves that put it into context. The extra tracks also allow a more rounded sense of where the label was at in a massively volatile period politically as our country teetered on the verge of civil war during the year-long miner's strike.

If you’ve never heard Pillows & Prayers then it's a useful primer for the indie pop revolution that was already fermenting across the UK, and for those of us who bought it when it was released it is a reminder of the best 99p we ever spent.

You can follow Cherry Red on Facebook and Twitter

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Words by Paul Clarke, you can see his author profile here

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