UB40: Signing Off 2LP Red Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This remastered 2LP set on red vinyl pairs the album with its companion 12-inch, cut at 45 RPM, in a wide-spine sleeve modelled on a benefit attendance card. Signing Off reached No. 2 on the UK albums chart and made UB40 one of Britain's biggest reggae bands.

This edition

2LP set
Red vinyl
Remastered
Second disc cut at 45 RPM
Wide-spine sleeve styled as a benefit attendance card
Custom printed inner sleeves
Download card included
Pressed in the EU
Lyrics included
Stereo mix

About the album

Most bands save up for studio time. UB40 couldn't, so they made their debut in producer Bob Lamb's ground-floor flat in Birmingham on an eight-track machine, feeding the same 50p coin through the electric meter after the lock had been dispensed with. The band had already spent a year learning their instruments in a cellar, rehearsing nine to five, before they felt ready.

Those sessions, spread from December 1979 into the summer of 1980, gave the album its loose, smoky dub feel. "King" and "Food For Thought" set the tone, "Tyler" and "Burden Of Shame" dig in deep, and the band's slow, haunting take on "Strange Fruit" shows how far they could stretch reggae. They even turn Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going To Rain Today" into something that sounds like it was always theirs. The extra 12-inch, cut in July 1980 with Ray "Pablo" Falconer producing, carries the sprawling "Madam Medusa."

Lamb used the proceeds to build a proper studio in an old cricket bat factory in Kings Heath. We like to think the electricity board got its 50p back eventually.

Also at Kops: more UB40 on vinyl · browse Reggae & Caribbean