Jamiroquai: The Return Of The Space Cowboy (2LP, 30th anniversary, marbled white vinyl) [SONY MUSIC UK]

Why you'll love it

This limited 30th anniversary 2LP set comes on marbled white vinyl in a gatefold jacket, with Michael Gray's Good Vibe Zone Edit of "Space Cowboy" as a bonus. The album reached No. 2 in the UK and sold 1.3 million copies worldwide.

This edition

• 2LP set
• 30th anniversary edition
• Marbled white vinyl
• Limited edition
• Gatefold jacket
• Bonus Michael Gray edit

About the album

Some drummers audition with a few bars. Derrick McKenzie got the Jamiroquai job by playing "Just Another Story" with the band in one take, and that take opens the album: a long, squelchy, rhythmic run of Fender Rhodes, strings, galloping bass and Jay Kay half rapping, half singing a street tale.

Recorded at Townhouse, Battery and Falconer studios in London, it pushed the acid jazz of Emergency on Planet Earth into lusher, funkier places. "Stillness In Time" (UK No. 9) has a Latin lilt, "Half The Man" is a tender song Kay wrote about his twin brother, "Light Years" hits hard with a heavy, driving groove, and "Manifest Destiny" stretches out into a brass-heavy coda. "Space Cowboy" went to No. 1 on the US dance charts, and this edition adds Michael Gray's club edit to Side D. "Morning Glory" and "Journey To Arnhemland," with its didgeridoo, show how far the band's palette had already stretched.

It went platinum at home and set up everything that followed, buffalo hat and all. Thirty years on, the hat has aged rather better than most of our trousers.

Also at Kops: more Jamiroquai on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Sony Music UK (cat# 19802807141), a reissue of the 1994 album.