MORE than 30 years on from its original release, The Queen Is Dead remains, in many people's opinions, one of the greatest albums of the 1980s, if not British music history.

If that seems a grand statement, then listen again and try to argue – from the tunefully treasonous title track to the ridiculously catchy Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others, most '80s bands would be happy for a Greatest Hits collection this strong, never mind the third of just four studio albums.

Morrissey’s textbook sarcastic, introverted, pretentious and – most importantly – funny lyrics fill Frankly, Mr Shankly, Cemetry (sic) Gates and Bigmouth Strikes Again, while the sublime There Is A Light That Never Goes Out remains an unbeaten ode to love, fear and longing.

The re-release portfolio includes a stunning three CD and DVD box set and this is the option reviewed here. The second disc is 13 tracks listed as ‘additional recordings’ – essentially demos and B-sides. Wonderfully, stripping away some of the production actually enhances some tracks, particularly I Know It’s Over, while turning Bigmouth Strikes Again into a busker’s delight.

A third CD is a live recording from the Great Woods Center For The Performing Arts in Boston from August 1986, which highlights the band at the top of their game.

Morrissey is note perfect, although rolling his ‘R’s a little more than on the recordings, and appears to be having fun - if one can imagine such a thing - telling the audience “you have good taste, thank you”, following applause.

Surprisingly, the recording – as clean as it is – really highlights the excellent drum work of Mike Joyce, as important to the performance as the much-lauded guitar work by Johnny Marr and Morrissey’s maudlin sarcasm.

The final disc is a DVD copy of the 1986 album, for some reason, plus three music videos by Derek Jarman – The Queen Is Dead, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out and Panic (which does not appear on this album) – which serve as an unforgettable artistic visual accompaniment to some of the greatest music this country has ever produced.