Meddle and Different Class swell the Icons vinyl run

Pre-orders are already live for the 17 October 2026 shop window, while pressing counts and any Irish-only variants remain under wraps.

Further titles have locked into National Album Day’s Icons programme, widening the limited-edition slate due in shops and online on 17 October 2026. Pink Floyd’s *Meddle*, Pulp’s *Different Class* and Paul Weller’s *Saturns Pattern* now sit alongside anniversary and catalogue pressings flagged for the day, extending a slate that ranges from progressive rock to Britpop and beyond.

The fuller list, confirmed after the 18 September announcement, also includes George Michael’s *Listen Without Prejudice*, Bryan Ferry’s *Boys and Girls*, Dire Straits’ *On Every Street* on its 35th anniversary, Sade’s *Lovers Rock*, The Pretenders’ *Get Close* and Elbow’s *Asleep In The Back*. Many of the editions are being cut as limited coloured vinyl; pre-orders opened as soon as the line-up was unveiled. Exact quantities have not been published, and no Irish-specific variants have been announced.

Anniversary editions in the frame

*Get Close* arrives as a 40th-anniversary edition on limited white vinyl with a brand-new remaster. The Pretenders, formed in March 1978 around founder and principal songwriter Chrissie Hynde with James Honeyman-Scott, Pete Farndon and Martin Chambers, rebuilt repeatedly after the deaths of Honeyman-Scott in 1982 and Farndon in 1983. Hynde has remained the sole constant. The record sits in the mid-1980s stretch that followed *Learning to Crawl* (1984) and the early studio run that began with the 1979 debut — a catalogue still active into *Hate for Sale* (2020), *Relentless* (2023) and the 2025 live set *Pretenders Live - Kick 'Em Where It Hurts!*.

Elbow’s *Asleep In The Back* is re-pressed as a 25th-anniversary 2LP on marbled blue vinyl. The Bury group — Guy Garvey, Craig Potter, Mark Potter and Pete Turner, who have played together since 1990 and adopted the Elbow name in 1997 — debuted with that record in 2002, before *Cast of Thousands* (2003), *Leaders of the Free World* (2005) and the Mercury-winning *The Seldom Seen Kid*. Drummer Alex Reeves, long a touring and session presence after Richard Jupp’s departure, became a full member in 2024; recent studio work includes *AUDIO VERTIGO* (2024) and subsequent EPs and singles through 2025. Putting the debut back on coloured wax places the start of that arc on the counter alongside the later catalogue.

Sade’s *Lovers Rock* (2000) rejoins the same Icons window. Helen Folasade Adu’s band had already set down *Diamond Life* (1984), *Promise* (1985), *Stronger Than Pride* (1988) and *Love Deluxe* (1992) before that turn-of-the-century album; *Soldier of Love* followed in 2010. Her standing was marked with an OBE in 2002 and a CBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours. A quiet, groove-led record in a run defined by restraint and craft, *Lovers Rock* is a natural fit for a day built around albums rather than singles.

What the day is for

A spokesperson for National Album Day put the emphasis on breadth: “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.” The event, staged with the BPI and ERA, is designed to push album discovery through physical and online retailers across the UK, with the Icons theme doing the obvious work of pulling canonical titles back onto shelves for one concentrated weekend.

*On Every Street* marks thirty-five years; *Meddle* and *Different Class* bring two further cornerstones of British catalogue — one from Pink Floyd’s early-1970s run, one from Pulp’s mid-1990s commercial peak under Jarvis Cocker — into the same coloured-vinyl push. Ferry’s *Boys and Girls* and Weller’s *Saturns Pattern* add solo chapters from artists whose band histories (Roxy Music; The Jam and The Style Council) already loom large for this readership. George Michael’s *Listen Without Prejudice*, issued in his lifetime (1963–2016), returns as catalogue rather than new work.

What remains unset is scale. No figures have been given for how many copies of each coloured or anniversary edition will be pressed, and nothing further has been said about in-store events or editions aimed specifically at the Republic. For now the facts are the date, the titles, the formats named and the pre-order windows open. Seventeen October will show how much of that Icons stock actually reaches the racks.