The Divine Selection
- 1. Death Of A Supernaturalist [Liberation] – with fade in
- 3:16
- 2. Bernice Bobs Her Hair [Liberation] – with fade out
- 4:00
- 3. Europop [New version] – with fade out
- 4:31
- 4. The Pop Singer's Fear Of The Pollen Count [Liberation]
- 4:19
- 5. The Booklovers [Promenade]
- 5:50
- 6. The Summerhouse [Promenade]
- 4:14
- 7. Tonight We Fly [+ Outro] – with faded in
- 3:16
- 8. Something For The Weekend [Casanova]
- 4:19
- 9. Becoming More Like Alfie [Casanova]
- 2:59
- 10. The Frog Princess [Casanova]
- 5:12
- 11. Songs Of Love [Casanova]
- 3:23
- 12. Everybody Knows (Except You) [A Short Album About Love]
- 3:48
- 13. If I Were You (I'd Be Through With Me) [A Short Album About Love]
- 4:41
- Formats
- CD (Tristar / Sony, 1996):
- XDCS 93277 – 100 copies
After the release of Casanova in Japan, Tristar went ahead with the releases of the next Divine Comedy album (A Short Album About Love), as well as the 2 previous albums (Liberation and Promenade). For such an important contract, Tristar lauched an advertising campaign (adverts..., but let’s not forget that The Divine Comedy toured in Japan in 1997 and gave some interviews) under the name of The Divine Selection. A promotionnal CD for media, supposed to be a DJ-only promotional disc, came out in the late 1996, when A Short Album About Love was already completed. So, The Divine Selection was actually released in Japan after Casanova, but before A Short Album About Love, Liberation or Promenade.
Presumably having a circulation of one hundred, the record comes with a nice packaging and so is a valuable collector. The cover looks great without being very original as it shows the cover of the four albums the songs are taken from (Liberation, Promenade, Casanova and A Short Album About Love).
The CD comes in a single style jewel box. On the back of the insert, the tracklisting is written in Japanese and in English. Inside, you will find a discography and biography of the band printed in black-and-white and written in Japanese.
As the other Tristar releases, the side is white with a blue round on the top. We find again the picture of Neil drinking his coffee in Venice, picture appearing on the Casanova obi-strip, and corporate image of The Divine Selection on the other Tristar releases. Also, the picture of the A Short Album About Love cover used in the discography is not the standard cover, but the English digipack one (rectangular).
On the CD, the title, tracklisting and copyrights are written. It bears, on the left-hand side, the serial number XDCS 93277, JASRAC/STEREO and NOT FOR SALE/SAMPLE, as in several places of the sleeve.
Around the centre, you can read : IFPI L275 XDCS-93277 1 ¤ ¤¤ ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
Because some songs from Liberation were overlap to the previous or the next in the original album, they had to be cut with fade-in or fade-out effects added. Track 7 contains a faded-in version of ‘Tonight We Fly’ but also contains the sample of Tom Jones (the film, not the singer!) which concludes Promenade, while being two separate tracks on the album. This lets to think it is deliberate.
Adverts
Since Tristar was in charge of promoting The Divine Comedy’s back catalogue in Japan, an advert (left) was edited featuring the four albums, and The Divine Selection is mentionned on it. It seems that they were in charge of the band’s promotion until the begining of 1998 since in a newsletter (right) they mentionned the Twentieth Century Blues album. But for the release of Fin de Siècle, The Divine Comedy’d have moved to V2.