Free music magazine cds

Every now and again one of these compilations becomes a definitive capsule of an era or genre, e.g. the late '90s Sounds Of The New West cd from Uncut which represented the burgeoning alt country/Americana scene.
I think one of the earlier magazine comps that became famous was the C86 cassette from the NME.
Would love to hear any other such examples people would rate as great standalone collections.

 

For me it was one in the same series - the first - C81.

C81 (album) - Wikipedia

The tape contained a set of 25 diverse tracks ranging from post-punk (Red Crayola, Essential Logic, D.A.F., The Raincoats), jazz (James Blood Ulmer), poetry (John Cooper Clarke), ska (The Beat), electronic (Cabaret Voltaire) to veteran 'Canterbury Scene' performer Robert Wyatt.

And it has the best version of Scritti Politti's "The Sweetest Girl" - they never bettered this one.

 

There were some excellent ones given with Mojo many years ago.

Instant Garage:

Various - Instant Garage (Music Guide Vol.1)

Raw Soul:

Various - Raw Soul (Music Guide Vol.3)

The Roots of Hip Hop:
Various - Roots Of Hip Hop (Music Guide Vol.2)

Blues Power:

Various - Blues Power (Music Guide Vol.4)

 

I also have one from Mojo where they have The Beatles 'Revolver' covered by a selection of different bands.

 

There's another terrific Uncut CD called Highway 61 Revisited Revisited which is the whole Dylan album covered by such artists as Richmond Fontaine, The Handsome Family, Willard Grant Conspiracy and Paul Westerberg.

Sounds of the New West was a real game-changer for me - my introduction to so many incredible bands.

 

Two of my own favourites to hand are "Blue Christmas" issued with Mojo (January 2005) and "It's a Wonderful Life" issued with Mojo (November 2014). The latter is described as a journey into sound compiled by Siouxsie Sioux and Steven Severin. Both great!

I need to dig out a few more - a compilation done by RHCP; a couple of Black Keys compilations; a Nonesuch Records compilations; a selection of U2 covers done by Q magazine.

 

When music magazines included actual music (such as flexidiscs, cassettes, CDs), it was an incredible bonus!

To me, sometimes "the music" was a bigger incentive to buy than "the ink".
(Obviously the ploy employed by the mag.)

The downside is when I'd spot Uncut or Q on the newsstands, but the CD was either:
1. Removed
2. Not included, at least in the U.S. , because the CD could not be sold with the mag outside the UK (...due to certain licensing, copyright, publishing, and specific territorial rights?)

...yet sometimes I'd see the magazines that had CDs being sold here at Tower Records.
So, it may have been an issue determined at the Distributor level.

 

This one was pretty good

Various - The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered

 

Feed Your Head, which came free with Mojo in late 2002 introduced me to 'Maggot Brain' and 'Defecting Grey'. It's still one of my favourite compilation CDs.

 

Have you seen the price of those magazines these days.... not sure "free CD" still applies.

 

Mojo has been doing them for years and have done some pretty great ones. Not sure if this list is complete but it's worth a look:

Mojo Magazine

 

Another couple of great Mojo ones:

Trojan Explosion:

Various - Trojan Explosion (20 Reggae Classics!)

Maximum '65:

Various - Maximum '65

 

Yes, both excellent choices. I rarely keep CDs these days and hardly ever rip free CDs into my digital collection, but those two have endured and get played very often.

 

Rolling Stone once gave out a mini disc, but I was never able to play it.

 

Totally crap move from Rolling Stone!

 

In the late nineties, early 2000's the magazine Q had these 'best tracks from the best albums of past year' free-CDs. I discovered quite a few bands just listening to these tracks.

 

Wire Magazine Wiretapper series - always worth a listen if you like adventuresome music.

 

Yeah, they should have sent me a complimentary player on which to spin it.

 

I never got round to getting one. I thought the one a friend had was amazing though.

 

I got this tape when I was pretty young, and loved it - it gave me a lot of strands to follow up on as a precocious rock music geek. I played the hell out of the followup C86 comp as well - so definitive of the mid-'80s UK indie rock scene that it actually named the movement.

The NME put out another tape around the same time called The World at One, which was my first major exposure to so-called "world music". The NME was really on a roll with its cassette series back then.

 

Big fan of these

Various - The Route To Quadrophenia

Various - The Roots Of Tommy

 

Off piste, as this was a tape, but the Vox magazine attempt at putting together an attempt at a Tarantino soundtrack was quite admirable:
Various - Abattoir Dogs

 

More here:
Magazine free CDs - Your favourites

 

Interesting factoid: the guy whose name you often see as compiler on those magazine CDs and tapes, Roy Carr, was a good friend of Keith Moon in the 60s. He was the drummer in a small-time band called The Executives, and used to hang out in Swinging London with Keith.

 

Yes! One of my all time favourite Christmas discs.