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One of the best-loved British albums of the mid-’70s will be revisited this summer with a fresh new mix and a host of bonus material: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel’s The Best Years of Our Lives.

Previously released as a 4CD/DVD set, Chrysalis’ new 2CD/DVD, available June 20, shuffles things around a bit. The original nine-track album, featuring the national chart-topper “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me),” has been newly mixed in stereo by the album’s original co-producer Alan Parsons. Bonus audio material includes the B-side “Another Journey” and 11 demos and outtakes, nine of which premiere on this set. A DVD will include high-resolution audio and video of the group’s April 14, 1975 concert at Hammersmith Odeon (released as a video package under the name Star Rider), both of which featured on the 2014 reissue; additional features include a concert documentary and appearance on Top of the Pops. The hardback mediabook style package – sized like a DVD case – includes new liner notes by Peter Doggett that feature new commentary from this line-up of Cockney Rebel’s surviving members (guitarist Jim Cregan, keyboardist Duncan Mackay and drummer Stuart Elliott) and Parsons, along with a trove of previously unpublished photographs by the late Mick Rock. (A remaster of the original mix by Abbey Road’s Miles Showell will be available on 180-gram, half-speed mastered vinyl.)

After a pair of albums fronting Cockney Rebel, including the Top 10 hit The Psychomodo (1974) and hit singles “Judy Teen” and “Mr. Soft,” Harley found himself without a backing band, who felt stifled by their lack of contributions to the music. Undeterred, Harley promised to assemble “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band ever heard” in an interview with Record Mirror. Assembling Cregan, Mackay, bassist George Ford and Elliott (a holdover from Cockney Rebel’s previous line-up), Harley took a different approach on his third studio effort. Gone were the glam and cabaret affectations of previous work – the band were originally driven more by electric violin than guitar – in favor of straightforward, Bowie-esque rock and roll. Harley also surprised his group (and himself) by coming to sessions with less fully formed songs, working out lyrics and some arrangements in the studio.

This change in approach fazed none of the fans that came to appreciate Cockney Rebel in the previous year. The Best Years of Our Lives became another Top 10, while “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” – a thinly-veiled dig at Harley’s former bandmates – rocketed all the way up to the top of the U.K. singles chart. A European concert tour was a certified success, and “Make Me Smile” became a sort of national rock standard. (Among its many covers was a live version by Duran Duran, recorded at the Hammersmith in the wake of Rio in 1982 and released as a B-side; the audience goes positively feral when they realize what’s being played.)

Harley played with versions of Cockney Rebel through 1977, after which he went solo and spent much of the ’80s dabbling in other types of music, playing Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe in a rock musical and even nearly clinching the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera (Harley duetted with Sarah Brightman on a single version of the show’s title track). He reunited with Cregan, Mackay and Elliott (Ford had died in 2007) to tour for the 40th anniversary of Best Years, and remained a beloved figure in British music beyond his passing in 2024 after a battle with cancer.

The Best Years will be reissued June 20. The full track list and pre-order links are below. (As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.)

The Best Years of Our Lives (50th Anniversary Edition) (Chrysalis CRC-1764 (U.K.), 2025)

2CD/DVD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada

CD 1: New stereo remix by Alan Parsons (original album released as EMI EMC-3068 (U.K.), 1975)

1. Introducing “The Best Years”
2. The Mad, Mad Moonlight
3. Mr Raffles (Man It Was Mean)
4. It Wasn’t Me
5. Panorama
6. Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
7. Back to the Farm
8. 49th Parallel
9. The Best Years of Our Lives
10. Another Journey (U.K. B-side to “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” – EMI 2263, 1975)

CD 2: Outtakes and Rarities (previously unreleased except where noted)

1. Another Journey (Early Version)
2. It Wasn’t Me (Outtake)
3. The Mad, Mad Moonlight (Rehearsal Version)
4. Back to the Farm (Instrumental Rehearsal)
5. 49th Parallel (Rehearsal)
6. Panorama (Vocal Run Through)
7. Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) (False Start)
8. Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) (Rough Mix) (released on The Best Years of Our Lives (Definitive Edition) – Parlophone EMCDX 3068 (U.K.), 2014)
9. Another Journey (Acoustic Demo)
10. The Best Years of Our Lives (Rehearsal Version)
11. The Best Years of Our Lives (Acoustic Demo) (released on The Best Years of Our Lives (Definitive Edition) – Parlophone EMCDX 3068 (U.K.), 2014)

DVD

• Between the Lines (concert documentary)
• Star Rider (Live At Hammersmith Odeon, London, England – 4/14/1975) (released on DVD in The Best Years of Our Lives (Definitive Edition) – Parlophone EMCDX 3068 (U.K.), 2014)
• Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) (Top of the Pops)
• Live At Hammersmith Odeon, London, England – 4/14/1975 (released on CD in The Best Years of Our Lives (Definitive Edition) – Parlophone EMCDX 3068 (U.K.), 2014)
  • The Mad, Mad Moonlight
  • Hideaway
  • Panorama
  • Bed in the Corner/Sweet Dreams/Psychomodo/Sling It!
  • Sebastian
  • Mr. Raffles (Man It Was Mean)
  • Back to the Farm
  • 49th Parallel
  • Death Trip
  • Judy Teen
  • Mr. Soft
  • The Best Years of Our Lives
  • Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
  • Tumbling Down