The Pogues: Rum Sodomy & The Lash (2LP, 40th anniversary edition, limited edition, marbled vinyl) [WARNER]

Why you'll love it

This 40th anniversary edition adds a whole second LP: B-sides, extra studio cuts, alternate mixes and two live tracks from Glasgow Barrowland, on marbled vinyl in a gatefold. The album itself reached No. 13 in the UK and sits on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Marbled vinyl
• 40th anniversary edition
• Limited edition
• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeves
• Pressed in Germany
• Obi strip
• Stereo mix

About the album

Elvis Costello was hired to produce two songs for a single and ended up producing the whole album, which tells you something about how much fun the room must have been. The Pogues' second record arrived in August 1985 with a sleeve that pasted the band's heads onto Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa, and a title drummer Andrew Ranken borrowed from a line attributed to Winston Churchill because it seemed to sum up life in the band.

Shane MacGowan wrote some of his finest songs here: "A Pair of Brown Eyes," "Sally MacLennane," "The Old Main Drag" and the wild "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn." The covers are just as strong, from Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" to Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," and bassist Cait O'Riordan takes the lead on "I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day." The bonus LP gathers "London Girl," "A Rainy Night in Soho," "The Body of an American" and "The Parting Glass."

NME's David Quantick called it probably the best LP of 1985, and Pitchfork gave it 9.5. We've played it in the shop at least once a week for forty years, and nobody has yet managed to keep their feet still.

Also at Kops: more The Pogues on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Pogue Mahone Records / Warner, a reissue of the 1985 album.