Howard Jones: ‘One To One’ reviewed

❉ This package acts as a comprehensive record of this period in Jones’ recording career, in sound and vision.

“This beautiful presentation will be a delight to Howard’s fans and will be a great addition to their collection.”

Howard Jones’ latest offering , an expanded Deluxe 3CD and 1DVD  release of his third album One to One from Cherry Red Records will delight his fans.

The first thing I noticed upon opening the gatefold casing was the sheer amount of material included in the set. This really has been a labour of love and it is immediately apparent as soon as you look at it. The CD design retains the original album artwork before opening out into period photos of Howard, and finally the discs themselves. A 16 page booklet is included which contains rare photos, a track by track annotation of the original release and a brand new sleevenote about the making of the album. This beautiful presentation will be a delight to Howard’s fans and will be a great addition to their collection.

The first CD is, of course, the original album, but it does contain new and alternate versions of some of the tracks, bringing the total up to sixteen songs.  The second CD takes a broader look at Howard’s career, featuring fourteen tracks covering alternative versions of tracks from both earlier albums Human’s Lib and Dream Into Action alongside rare versions of some One to One tracks. CD two totals 14 tracks.

The third CD delves even deeper into One to One rarities, presenting demos, instrumentals and alternate versions of many of the tracks from the original album. The total tracks included on this final CD comes in at a respectable fourteen.

The fourth disc is a DVD of HoJo’s television appearances from this era including Top of the Pops, Wogan and The Roland Rat Show amongst others! This may be my favourite inclusion in the set, as it is also a slice of eighties social history, transporting viewers immediately back to that era. Recording artists now don’t really get the opportunity to appear on so many television shows, let alone the wild and wacky programmes like Roland Rat that stars of the eighties had to turn up for!

This collection probably won’t attract new fans but, to be fair, that isn’t its intention. It has been assembled as a gift to fans and is a genuine attempt to gather together an historical musical record of this period in Howard’s recording career. I’ve seen other artists attempt at doing this but I haven’t come across anyone else who has done it more successfully. Cherry Red Records and Howard should be congratulated on their achievement. This has set the gold standard that other artists should aspire to.


❉ Howard Jones: ‘One To One’ (Expanded Edition) is out now from Cherry Red Records. RRP £11.99. Click here to order directly from Cherry Red Records.

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1 Comment

  1. Awesome write-up of an incredible re-issue! I have been playing this one for the past few weeks and really enjoying it. Very cool to get to hear the demos of some of these tracks and see what they developed from. I wish the DVD had a wider variety of songs on it – it is basically the one song on four or five different programs; however, if that is basically the only tune he promoted on TV, then I guess that’s all they could give us.

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