Dire Straits and Ferry join the Album Day Icons list

National Album Day’s Icons campaign has now confirmed a wider slate of limited-edition reissues for 17 October 2026, placing Dire Straits’ *On Every Street* and Bryan Ferry’s *Boys and Girls* among the titles due in physical and online retailers across the UK.

These confirmations sit alongside records already flagged for that window — among them The Pretenders’ *Get Close*, Elbow’s *Asleep In The Back* and Kirsty MacColl’s *Desperate Character* — and extend the list to include Pink Floyd’s *Meddle*, Sade’s *Lovers Rock*, George Michael’s *Listen Without Prejudice*, Bob Dylan’s *Desire*, Alanis Morissette’s *Jagged Little Pill* and Emeli Sandé’s *Our Version Of Events*. A spokesperson for National Album Day said: “It’s appropriate that for this year’s edition of National Album Day, which celebrates Icons, we are presenting to fans our strongest ever line-up of album releases and classic reissues, drawn from across all eras and genres.”

On Every Street at thirty-five

*On Every Street* is marked as a thirty-fifth anniversary edition. Dire Straits formed in London in 1977 around Mark Knopfler, David Knopfler, John Illsley and Pick Withers, and the album arrived in 1991 after the band reformed following their first split. It closed the studio run that had begun with the self-titled debut in 1978 and passed through *Communiqué*, *Making Movies*, *Love Over Gold* and the rest of the catalogue. The live document *On the Night* followed in 1993, and the group remained active only until 1995. Later compilations and the 2024 live set *Live 1978–1992* have kept the name in circulation, but this pressing is a dedicated reissue of the final studio record.

Ferry, Hynde and the British shelf

Bryan Ferry’s *Boys and Girls* lands in the same Icons batch. Ferry, the English singer whose voice and sartorial style defined Roxy Music as well as a long solo career, has been issuing records under his own name since *These Foolish Things* in 1973, with further solo albums through the mid-1970s and a steady flow of later work that extended to *Retrospective* and *Loose Talk* in the mid-2020s. Placing *Boys and Girls* on the National Album Day shelf puts one of the solo landmarks back into the high-street conversation beside the band era that made his name.

The Pretenders’ *Get Close* continues the British-facing strand. The band formed in March 1978 around Chrissie Hynde, James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers; after the deaths of Honeyman-Scott and Farndon in the early 1980s, the line-up shifted repeatedly, with Hynde the sole constant through *Learning to Crawl*, later studio sets and the 2023 album *Relentless*. Elbow’s *Asleep In The Back* and Kirsty MacColl’s *Desperate Character* complete that cluster. MacColl, the English singer-songwriter who died in 2000, is present strictly as catalogue: the reissue is of the work, not a new statement.

George Michael’s *Listen Without Prejudice* appears in the same Icons frame. Michael, who died in 2016, is likewise represented by the record itself. Sade’s *Lovers Rock*, Pink Floyd’s *Meddle* and Dylan’s *Desire* broaden the scope beyond the immediate British and Irish core, while Morissette and Sandé bring later commercial landmarks into the same retail moment.

Nightlife in orange

Running alongside the Icons titles, though listed as a separate campaign, is a Thin Lizzy *Nightlife* pressing on orange vinyl, also dated 17 October. Thin Lizzy remain a fixed point in the Irish rock story; Phil Lynott died in 1986, and the release is a catalogue return rather than any present-day activity by the classic line-up.

No pricing has been announced, and exact track listings beyond the album titles themselves have not been released. What is fixed is the date, the Icons theme, the retailers — physical and online across the UK — and a line-up that now runs from Dire Straits’ final studio album to Ferry’s solo catalogue, Hynde’s band, MacColl’s songwriting and a Thin Lizzy colour variant. Further details on formats and pricing are due before 17 October.