The Libertines - Up The Bracket (20th Anniversary Edition) (Boxset)

To celebrate the release of their astonishing debut album, Up The Bracket, The Libertines are releasing a 20th Anniversary Edition on multiple formats, through Rough Trade, on October 21st 2022.

In addition to a remaster of the original Up The Bracket album, produced by Mick Jones (The Clash), the Super Deluxe Edition also includes a remarkable 65 previously unreleased recordings including many original demos, radio sessions and live recordings all helping to chart the making of Up The Bracket, plus a live recording from the 100 club in 2002. It also contains a 60 page book with a forward by Matt Wilkinson, new interviews with the band by Anthony Thornton and many unseen photos and memorabilia.

Up The Bracket arrived like a raging bull in a tired post-Britpop china shop and introduced the world to The Libertines, a new gang of London bohemians, whose ragged tunes, red military tunics, opiated poetry and ‘live now pay never’ lifestyle came to define the millennial angst of the early noughties. At the heart of the band is the blood bond bromance between the ramshackle Music Hall Jagger/Richards, Peter Doherty and Carl Barat, ably assisted by the rock solid rhythm twins John Hassall and Gary Powell. Any bookie worth his salt would have given you short odds on this quartet surviving more than a month or two, given the teetering on the brink lifestyle they chose to lead, but here we are two decades later and our Byronic heroes, though older and wiser, are still fighting the good fight and making music every bit as vital as their debut. The belief, talent and fervour that Doherty spoke of in their earliest manifesto has stood them in good stead.

Up The Bracket, justly considered one of the greatest albums of the noughties, was originally released on October 21st 2002 by Rough Trade Records. The album, a heady stew of indie rock, skiffle, blues, dub and English bucolic pop, was a huge shot in the arm to a largely redundant music scene and helped to inspire the rebirth of guitar music, going on to influence countless artists who followed in its wake.

Up The Bracket, which was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, takes you on a wondrously poetic journey into the band’s mythical world and their fevered dreams of Albion, a land of squalid glamour, liberty, equality, fraternity, gin palaces and chip shops. Quite simply Pete, Carl, Gary and John created a hugely compelling timeless British rock'n'roll classic debut as relevant now as it was upon its release.

LP1: Up The Bracket (Remastered) (Black Vinyl):

1. Vertigo

2. Death On The Stairs

3. Horror Show

4. Time For Heroes

5. Boys in the Band

6. Radio America

7. Up The Bracket

8. Tell The King

9. The Boy Looked at Johnny

10. Begging

11. The Good Old Days

12. I Get Along

LP2: Live at The 100 Club (White vinyl):

1. Horrorshow

2. Vertigo

3. The Delaney

4. What A Waster

5. Begging 

6. Time For Heroes

7. Death On The Stairs

8. Boys In The Band

9. I Get Along

7” - Up The Bracket – Blue Vinyl:

1. Up The Bracket – Original Audio not remastered 2. 

Boys in the Band – Original Audio not remastered

7” - Time For Heroes - Red Vinyl:

1. Time For Heroes – Original Audio not remastered

2. The 7 Deadly Sins (Demo) – Original Audio not remastered

CD1: Album Studio Outtakes:

1. Up The Bracket – Take 4

2. Vertigo – Take 2

3. Ha Ha Wall – Take 1

4. Horror Show – Take 3

5. Bangkok – Take 1

6. Time For Heroes – Take 3

7. Begging – Take 1

8. What A Waster – Take 1

9. Breck Road Lover – Take 1

10. Never Never – Take 2

11. Tell The King – Take 1

12. The Domestic – Take 1

13. Don’t Talk To Me -Take 1

14. The Wolfman – Take 2

15. Radio America – Take 2

16. The Good Old Days – Take 1

17. 7 Deadly Sins – Take 3

18. Sweets – Take 4

19. Mocking Bird – Take 6

20. Boys In The Band – Take 1

21. Skag & Bone Man – Take 2

CD2: Demos/Radio Sessions/B-Sides/Live etc:

1. Vertigo – Demo

2. The Boy Looked At Johnny - Demo

3. Death On The Stairs - Demo

4. Horror Show - Demo

5. All At Sea (Misty) - Demo

6. Wolfman - Demo

7. Plan A – Demo

8. Up The Bracket – Evening Session

9. Boys In The Band – Evening Session

10. Time For Heroes – Evening Session

11. I Get Along/mayday – Evening Session

12. Jo Whiley – Christmas Live Lounge

13. Skag & Bone Man – Up The Bracket B-Side

14. The Delaney - Up The Bracket B-Side

15. Plan A - Up The Bracket B-Side

16. General Smuts (Demo) – Time For Heroes B-Side

17. Bangkok (Demo) – Time For Heroes – B-Side

18. Mr. Finnegan (Demo) – Time For Heroes B-Side

19. Sally Brown (Demo) – Time For Heroes B-Side

20. 7 Deadly Sins (Demo) – Time For Heroes B-Side

21. Up The Bracket – Live at The ICA – 3/6/02

22. Mayday – Live at Nottingham Rock City – 30/10/02

23. Begging - Live at Divan Du Monde, Paris – 7/11/02

24. The Boy Looked At Johnny – Live at Divan Du Monde, Paris – 7/11/02

25. Death On The Stairs – Alt Guitar Version

DVD HD Videos of:

Up The Bracket

Time For Heroes

I Get Along

Up The Bracket  & Boys In The Band – Jools Holland Dec 2002

Time For Heroes – Top Of The Pops March 2003

Exclusive Extras – still tbc

Cassette - Early Demos:

1. I Get Along – 12/01 – Nomis Demo

2. Time For Heroes – 12/01 – Nomis Demo

3. Never Never – 12/01 – Nomis Demo

4. Horror Show – 12/01 – Nomis Demo

5. Boys In The Band – 12/01 – Nomis Demo

6. Up The Bracket – 01/02 – Nomis Demo

7. Begging - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

8. What A Waster - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

9. Skint & minted - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

10. General Smuts - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

11. Bangkok - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

12. Mayday - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

13. Mr Finnegan - 01/02 – Nomis Demo

14. Tell The King – 25/1/02 - Demo

15. Death On The Stairs – 25/1/02 – Demo

16. Time For Heroes – 1/3/02 - Demo

17. I Get Along – 1/3/02 - Demo

18. Horror Show – 1/3/02 – Demo

19. Boys In The Band – 1/3/02 - Demo

20. General Smuts – 1/3/02 – Demo