It was a stunt of sorts, yet it was also an idea, and as the Legend! points out in the liner notes to this 2003 reissue, ideas in music are few and far between. It suckered weak-willed casual fans into apprehensively buying a
Wedding Present single once a month for an entire year, but it also produced a handful of the group's best singles -- all 12 of which reached the Top 40 of the U.K. chart -- and several covers that were either completely unlikely or just the opposite. While the Hit Parade 1 CD compilation covered January-June and its companion disc took care of the rest of the year, this reissue places the A-sides on one disc and the B-sides on the other. As a result, the first disc makes for a solid follow-up to 1991's
Seamonsters; the B-sides disc makes for one of the best all-covers albums ever made. This would've been a good time to make Hit Parade 3 -- a limited six-song disc of more covers -- more widely available. Some things must be left for the 20th anniversary edition, right? ~ Andy Kellman