Tougher Than Tough EP

Various: "Tougher Than Tough EP" (Mango)/Mike Oldfield: "Moonlight Shadow" (Virgin)

'Tougher Than Tough' is a mouth-watering taster for a forthcoming compilation from a subdivision of Island. However, U2 aren't on it. It will be a reinvention and a half, possibly a reinvention too far, which enables them to qualify for inclusion on a 4CD set entitled The Story of Jamaican Music. The four seminal Island tracks which are on the EP, Millie's 'My Boy Lollipop'; The Maytals' '54-56 (That's My Number)'; Junior Murvin's 'Police and Thieves' and Gregory Isaacs' 'Night Nurse' are all pretty much beyond criticism at this stage of the game, don't you think?

Our other review-worthy reissue this fortnight is a song which baffled me for no less than five years after its initial release in 1983. Why, I wondered, did all those DJs insist on crediting it to some guy called Mike when even I, nine-years-old and musical ignorant, could tell that whoever it was blathering on about being "lost in the middle on a Saturday night, far away on the other side," it was definitely no bloke? The answer, if there are any similarly confused youngsters out there now, is that Mike only wrote it, a nice lady called Maggie Reilly sings. Strange, I know, but there's egomaniacs for you. 'Moonlight Shadow' is, of course, a classic, one of the select few songs that manages to be both pretentious, incomprehensible bollocks AND a work of downright genius.