Inadvertent Masterpieces: Compilations that are brilliant in their own right.

I only bought More Hot Rocks because it had much more stuff I didn't have, I played it a lot.

 

Yes, I found the Stones with Rolled Gold and it was so good, I didn't want to explore deeper for a very long time as it is just so strong.

 

I played Rolled Gold just about every day for ages. Then started collecting up all the Decca original records - singles, EPs and LPs. I didn't have a CD player then, the early 90s, so around every record fair, second hand shop, car boot sale etc I went...

I got them all though!

 

I went the opposite way, I couldn't get enough!

 

The Jam's Snap has

It is weird, I dipped my toes in a few times and just couldn't get past the singles, I tried a lot of the albums, then this year, I went a little crazy and bought the Mono box, just for the heck of it and found out I loved it!

What is great is that here I am 50+ and still finding "new" music to enjoy.

I do find the Stones 60s catalogue so confusing though, but in a good way.

 

Guided By Voices - Human Amusements At Hourly Rates

"Game Of Pricks" was the song that got me interested in GBV, but this was the CD that made me a fan. 32 tracks from 1987 to 2003, not a dud among them. I wouldn't even have minded if this thing was a double album! There's so many great GBV tracks that it's hard to fit them into 80 minutes - even though most of them are less than two! Plus, there's a few rarities here - Tigerbomb version of "Game Of Pricks", 7" version of "Motor Away", "Shocker In Gloomtown". And there's still plenty of tracks I would have liked to see - "Choking Tara", "Fair Touching", "Liquid Indian"...

Two complaints: for all the great tracks included here, it's mind-boggling that "Gold Star For Robot Boy" somehow didn't make the cut. That would be like a Rolling Stones comp without "Tumbling Dice". How can you leave off the instant-classic, fan-favorite concert singalong? "Non-Absorbing" is a great song, but you're telling me it's better than The Boy!? Madness!

The second complaint is the title. Not because it's bad, but because the same album produced a lyric that sums up this unbelievably talented band doomed to cult obscurity ever so perfectly: A Perversion Not Known To The Perfect Ones.

 

How did we get to #55 and nobody's mentioned THIS IS THE MOODY BLUES and MOTHERMANIA?

 

It never ends...

The early Stones album I love most is the UK Out of Our Heads. Apart from the pure excitement of She Said Yeah opening it, I couldn't even say why. It's also one of my favourite album covers. A very cool photo. That album got me into soul music in a big way.

 

Elvis Presley - The Sun Sessions

Released in 1976 and the ne plus ultra of compilations.

Chuck Berry - The Great Twenty-Eight
Stones - Hot Rocks/More
Beatles - Red/Blue
Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady
The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow

 

Since it hasn’t been mentioned yet, I’ll share the compilation that transformed the reputation of a long disbanded group from being cheesy kitsch to brilliant artists worthy of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

 

I can only imagine the mind boggling challenge of having to compile GBV into one disc. It's an insane task, but done well here.

 

I've never known an artists reputation more positively re-evaluated by a compilation than this one. Though I prefer the double The Singles - The First Ten Years LP from the early 80s.

 

The Tangerine Dream Booster series I-VII released between 2007 and 2015, and the Edgar Froese Ambient Highway 1-4 series in 2003.

 

I would never be able to exclude “The Day Before You Came” from an ABBA best of, so I get it! I’d want “When All is Said and Done” in there, too.

I can’t think of another compilation that changed historical perspective for an artist this much, either. It even made them belated stars in the USA, selling six million units here.

The only other corollary I can think of is how the CD releases of Rubber Soul and Revolver significantly elevated those two albums in the Beatles canon, once the whole world heard them as the U.K. had.

 

Yeah, Sun Sessions are historically great.

Along the same line - Johnny Burnette & The Rock & Roll Trio.

It's one of the most rocking 12 inches of vinyl ever pressed.

 

I totally agree with your selection of Girls! Girls! Girls!, I have it on record & disc & would not want to ever be without it

 

Aretha’s Gold

 

I'm not a huge ABBA fan by any means, but I really like Summer Night City and So Long, neither of which are on ABBA Gold, along with The Day Before You Came. I can't stand Money Money Money or Gimme Gimme Gimme, but they're the only two I think are tacky and naff. The Name Of The Game is my favourite.

Completely self indulgent fact about me - I was born just after ABBA won Eurovision and Waterloo was number one. So there's a slight chance it could be the first song I ever heard!

 

Another one that spent a huge amount of time on my turntable is the self titled Madness LP that Geffen issued in 1983. It's mostly tracks that had not been issued in the USA at that time. It spawned two top 40 hits too.

 

Songs to Learn and Sing by Echo and the Bunnymen

The Great Twenty Eight by Chuck Berry

Street Life by Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry

And the one that changed my life at age 15:
Biograph by Bob Dylan

 

Rocket from the Crypt- All Ststems Go vol. 1
The Jam- Snap!
The Cure- Staring at the Sea

 

I agree. It's a brilliant comp of his peak work.

There's just something about the oddball brilliance of throwaway tunes like Hoover Factory that brings me back to Taking Liberties. These are just humble little slices of brilliance from a guy who was making it look effortless at his peak.

 

What is the deal with ' George Jackson '---it's so hard to find ! As for the ' big band ' version, forget about it !

 

How on earth have I forgotten to mention the sublime Divine Madness compilation?!