Dare Release Their First Compilation Album: The Best of Dare

Dare's First Compilation Album Arrives After 40 Years

June 2025 marked a landmark moment for the English rock band Dare. The Oldham-formed outfit released their very first compilation album, The Best of Dare, a double-CD set that finally gathers the band's career-spanning highlights in one place. Released through Darren Wharton's own Legend Records label, the compilation arrives as the band celebrates nearly 40 years since their formation in 1985.

For a band that has weathered line-up changes, label drops and shifting musical trends, a compilation might feel like a retrospective full stop. But for Dare, it reads more like a statement of endurance. The double-CD format gives the collection real weight, allowing the band to showcase both their cherished AOR classics and the deeper cuts that dedicated followers have championed for decades. It's a release that makes sense both as an introduction for new listeners and as a keepsake for the faithful.

Dare Compilation Album: A Career Spanning Four Decades

The story of Dare begins with Darren Wharton, the former Thin Lizzy keyboard player who found himself at a crossroads when Phil Lynott dissolved that legendary band. Wharton didn't wait long to channel his creative energy into a new project. In 1985, Dare was born in Oldham, and within two years the band had built enough of a local following to catch the attention of A&M Records, who signed them to a four-year deal.

Their debut album, Out of the Silence, arrived in 1988, recorded in Los Angeles at Joni Mitchell's private studio in Beverly Hills. The line-up on that record is fascinating in hindsight: Wharton on vocals and keyboards, Vinny Burns on guitars, Martin "Shelley" Shelton on bass, James Ross on drums, and, notably, a young Brian Cox on keyboards. Yes, that Brian Cox. The future physicist started his musical career in Dare before trading stadium rock for the Large Hadron Collider. It's the kind of fact that makes Dare's early history so compelling.

The band followed up with Blood from Stone in 1991, which peaked at No. 48 on the UK Albums Chart. They also enjoyed a string of charting singles during this period, including "Abandon" (No. 71, 1989), "Nothing Is Stronger Than Love" (No. 95, 1989), "The Raindance" (No. 62, 1989), "We Don't Need a Reason" (No. 52, 1991) and "Real Love" (No. 67, 1991). But despite this moderate success, album sales flagged and A&M dropped the band. For many acts, that would have been the end. For Dare, it was just an intermission.

The Comeback Years: From Calm Before the Storm to Sacred Ground

Dare didn't release a third album until 1998, a full seven years after Blood from Stone. Calm Before the Storm was produced by Wharton and marked a significant stylistic pivot. Gone were Burns, Cox and Clutterbuck; in came Andrew Moore on guitars, Martin Wilding on bass, plus brothers Julian Gardner on drums and Simon Gardner on keyboards. The sound became mellower, with Celtic influences creeping into the band's melodic rock foundation.

The following year, Calm Before the Storm was reissued on Wharton's own Legend Records label, a savvy move that gave the band creative control and a permanent home. Belief followed in 2001, and its lead single "White Horses" was playlisted by legendary BBC Radio 2 presenter Terry Wogan. That kind of mainstream radio support helped Dare tour across Europe and Scandinavia, including a 12-date UK run with Asia.

By 2004, the band had released Beneath the Shining Water, with the single "Sea of Roses" once again receiving significant Radio 2 airplay. The supporting tour was immortalised as The Power of Nature: Live in Munich in 2005, a live album and DVD that captured the band in full flight. In 2008, Belief and Beneath the Shining Water were packaged as a double CD in the US via Warner Music/ADA, complete with a bonus re-recording of "Real Love".

The real turning point came in October 2009 with Arc of the Dawn. Founding member Vinny Burns returned for the subsequent tour, restoring a chemistry that had been missing for nearly two decades. That line-up, with Wharton and Burns at its core, became the band's bedrock. Calm Before the Storm 2 followed in 2012, a re-recording of the third album with an altered track listing, and then came Sacred Ground in July 2016. MelodicRock.com praised the album for featuring "some of Wharton's most mature song writing to date", describing it as thought-provoking and passionate whilst retaining a dark rock edge.

Road to Eden and the Road to The Best of Dare

The most recent studio album, Road to Eden, was released in 2022, with the line-up of Wharton, Burns, Whitehead and Clutterbuck joined by Marc Roberts on keyboards. The band continued to tour in support of the album, adding dates that included an appearance at the Cambridge Rock Festival. And then in June 2025 came the announcement of The Best of Dare, the band's first-ever compilation, published through Legend Records.

A compilation like this does more than just repackage old songs. It forces a reckoning with the band's legacy. Dare have never been a household name in the way their peers were, but they have built something arguably more valuable over the years: a devoted, cross-generational fanbase that has stuck with them through every stylistic shift and line-up change. The Best of Dare is effectively a love letter to that audience, and a doorway for anyone who has only heard the name in passing.

It's also worth noting that Dare's commercial peak in the late 1980s and early 1990s placed them in a crowded field. AOR and melodic rock were oversaturated with acts vying for attention, and it's a testament to Wharton's persistence that the band outlasted so many of their contemporaries. The compilation format allows listeners to trace that trajectory, from the polished, radio-ready production of Out of the Silence to the Celtic-tinged introspection of the later records.

The Bigger Picture: Why Compilation Albums Still Matter in 2026

In an era of streaming playlists and algorithm-driven listening, the compilation album could easily feel like an anachronism. Why buy a double CD when you can build a playlist in seconds? But for bands like Dare, compilations serve a deeper purpose. They provide context, curation and a sense of narrative that algorithmic playlists simply cannot replicate. A carefully sequenced double CD tells a story: here is where we started, here is how we evolved, here is the thread that connects it all.

There's also a broader trend at play here. The last decade has seen a remarkable surge of interest in 1980s and 1990s rock music, driven partly by nostalgia and partly by a younger generation discovering that melodic rock has more depth than the genre's reputation suggests. Bands from that era are reissuing catalogues, reuniting for tours and, yes, releasing compilations. Dare's decision to join that wave with The Best of Dare is both commercially sensible and culturally significant. It positions them within a wider revival that includes everyone from arena-filling veterans to cult acts finally getting their due.

The Brian Cox connection adds an extra layer of intrigue. It's genuinely rare for a rock band to count a future particle physicist among its alumni, and that quirk of history has given Dare a curious foot in the worlds of both music and science. It also highlights how porous the boundaries of creative scenes can be. The same Oldham circuit that produced Dare in the 1980s was full of musicians who went on to all sorts of unexpected careers. That sense of possibility is part of the band's DNA, and The Best of Dare captures it well.

What's Next for Dare?

With the compilation safely out in the world, the natural question is what comes next. Dare's current line-up, featuring Wharton, Burns, Clutterbuck, Morgan and Roberts, is stable and has been gigging consistently. The band has shown no signs of slowing down, and the continued presence of Vinny Burns on lead guitar ensures that their live sound retains the edge that first won them fans in the late 1980s.

There is, of course, always the possibility of new studio material. The gap between Sacred Ground and Road to Eden was six years, so fans shouldn't necessarily expect a quick follow-up. But the momentum from a compilation release, combined with a busy live schedule, is often exactly the spark a band needs to start writing again. Whether that means a new album or simply more touring remains to be seen.

What's certain is that Dare have earned their place in the conversation. From the early days in Oldham to a recording session at Joni Mitchell's Beverly Hills studio, from the A&M glory years to the wilderness period and the triumphant return of a founding guitarist, their story is one of persistence. The Best of Dare is not the final chapter. It's a marker of how far they've come, and a promise that there's more to come. For anyone who has ever wondered what happened to that band with the Thin Lizzy keyboard player, this is the perfect place to start.