After the success of her 1984 first Rough Trade single, Hand In Glove, on which she was backed by The Smiths, it would be a further four years until Sandie was in position to record an album for the label. Hello Angel, on which most of the tracks were co-written by Sandie herself (augmented by songs by The Waterboys, The Jesus And Mary Chain and others), was the result, her most personally satisfying album project to date and her best work in almost twenty years. The ten bonus cuts round up the single b-sides as well as the tracks Sandie recorded with The Smiths in 1984 and during her short time at Polydor in 1986. The first sign that Sandie had recorded a new album was the release in October 1988 of Please Help The Cause Against Loneliness. The 12-inch single featured two other notable tracks, Lover Of The Century and I Will Remain (also the last track on the album). Morrissey co-wrote the A-side with producer Stephen Street and Sandie was bang on song with her performance. Of course, as any self-respecting Sandie Shaw fan knew, the trick was also to flip the single and listen to the B-sides. And this single was to prove to be no exception. Lover Of The Century, a classy songwriting collaboration between Sandie and Mark E. Nevin, slotted into that laid-back loungecore mood that was popularised at the time by such acts as Everything but the Girl and Swing Out Sister. The quality of Sandie s lyrics powers through many of the tracks here, sufficiently so to make you wonder why Sandie had never been encouraged to write earlier. Her new-found talent for songwriting was certainly no fluke, as I Will Remain in particular demonstrates. There are those who rate this collaboration with old friend Chris Andrews as the performance of her career and it is a lovely way to draw this very accomplished album to a close.
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