Stephen Duffy - I Love My Friends [2CD] (1997/2019)

Stephen Duffy's 1996 solo album I Love My Friends available for the first time ever on vinyl and vinyl replica CD. Produced by Stephen Street, the album was released to unanimously positive reviews and remains a favourite among his fans.Following a time of personal upheaval, the album was the result of an unprecedented creativity for Stephen.

"The tunes and the words were coming faster than I could write them down. That's the dichotomy of I Love My Friends. My interior world was falling apart, but creatively it was a charmed existence."After tasting worldwide chart success with his 1985 hit Kiss Me, Stephen went on to record four albums of exquisite bucolic pop with his group The Lilac Time before recommencing his solo career. Stephen was a formative player in the West Midlands post-punk scene alongside Swell Maps and Duran Duran, whose first incarnation he fronted. In 2002, he reunited with Nick Rhodes to release an album of their early songs with the group. One high-profile champion of I Love My Friends was Robbie Williams who, on hearing the record, became so obsessed with it that he asked Stephen to co-write his Intensive Care album. Robbie went on to cover a song from I Love My Friends record, The Postcard.

Strictly speaking, this version of I Love My Friends isn't a reissue. On delivering the album to his label Indolent, Stephen was asked to record two more songs for putative single release. Produced by Andy Partridge, these songs necessitated the last-minute removal of two songs which have since passed into fan lore as two of Stephen's all-time best: Mao Badge and In The Evening Of Her Day. In the event, Cooking Vinyl put out the record after Indolent's parent company BMG withheld the release. This release of I Love My Friends restores these songs to the record, honouring Stephen's original vision for the album. The two Andy Partridge-produced songs You Are and What If I Fell In Love With You will be available on a seven-inch single which comes with all vinyl copies of I Love My Friends.