I’ve been on my sickbed today (don’t worry, nothing serious, just a bit fluey) so I dragged the portable turntable into the living room and have been listening to a few things I haven’t listened to in a while.
I was just taking in a Fatcat Records compilation double album (“Across Uneven Terrain – 1997-1999″) and thinking how great it was (erm…if you like experimental minimalist electronica) and then I realised just how few COMPILATION albums I own. It’s probably less than ten and I only listen to a few of them regularly. I suppose it’s all linked with my fear of ‘shuffle’ and the pleasure I get from the arc of a well put together album, but I can’t help thinking that I’m missing out on something.
Shane mentioned the 50 Years of African Independence mammoth comp. recently, which I’ve been delving into with what I can find online, and I know there are the classics like Nuggets and C86 (which Blimpy Spilled a couple of years ago), but would love some more recommendations for decent comps to get my teeth into.
*NOT ‘Greatest Hits’ albums and not self-compiled mixtapes (although they usually are the best!).
This one contributed my Festive No. 1 for 2012. Jason Noble played with Rachel’s and Shipping News among other bands and this is a benefit album from his family by a bunch of musicians who wanted to help. I’ve loved a lot of it.
http://jasonnoblebenefit.bandcamp.com/
oh..this looks great, thanks, right up my street, I’m familiar (but not overly so) with Shipping News and Rachel’s……and all for a good cause too. Perfect!
I recognise the opening track from your Festive Spill pick!
It’s not exactly a recommendation for you, but I had a compilation tape in the 90s called Precious, and I think you’re going to love this tracklisting:
1. Inspiral Carpets – Dragging Me Down
2. The Charlatans – Weirdo
3. The Stone Roses – Fools Gold
4. Ride – Twisterella
5. Suede – The Drowners
6. Primal Scream – Loaded
7. Blur – There’s No Other Way
8. The House Of Love – Shine On
9. James – Sit Down
10. Jesus Jones – Real Real Real
11. The Shamen – Make It Mine
12. The Sugarcubes – Hit
13. Lush – For Love
14. Voice Of The Beehive – Monsters And Angels
15. The Wonderstuff – Size Of A Cow
16. Pixies – Planet Of Sound
17. Pale Saints – Kinky Love
18. Spaghetti Head – Glad [Smiley Mix]
19. My Bloody Valentine – Soon
20. Daisy Chainsaw – Love Your Money
No, I never knew what Spaghetti Head were doing on there either.
Another favourite of mine is Dark Was The Night, from 2009, an amazing double CD in aid of Red Hot which reads like a who’s who of hipster-Americana.
I’m not really a great buyer of compilations, but I love making them, and am a convert to the cult of shuffle.
That IS some tracklisting! My 90s comp was “Loaded”, but this just might beat it!
“Dark Was the Night” is one of the few that I do have and listen to regularly…thanks to some Spill picks from you (I think) a couple of years ago!
I have the CD. It’s one of the best. And Dark Was The Night is awesome, too.
I’ll second Dark Was The Night as well
Sorry to hear you’ve caught the flu bug too – wish you more success shaking it off than we’re having at present!
Family Records offer free ‘mixtape’ downloads of all their artists – some might be a bit too folk-orientated for your tastes, but there’s some good ‘generically indie’ stuff out there, too:
http://store.thefamilyrecords.com/collections/music-downloads
Gute Besserung!
bookmarked for some downloading tomorrow – thanks!
Ooh! just one? Ok…
This one’s terrific
Superfly Soul (Dynamite Funk and Badassed Street Grooves) I mean, you can’t go wrong with that title!. It digs deep into late sixties to mid seventies Soul-Funk names all across the board, from the most popular to the curios, and each and every one of the tracks is brill… I’ve submitted a couple earwoms from here back in the day.
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Superfly-Soul-Dynamite-Funk-And-Bad-Assed-Street-Grooves/release/899449
The Complete Stax-Volt Soul Singles – 9 cds of great Southern Soul.
Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection – Just a great R&B celebration
Remembering you’ve posted Pelle Carlberg songs in the past… did you ever download the big bundle of mp3s from Sweden’s wonderful Labrador records? Shane pointed me towards this a while back – they seem to have added some more since I last visited:
http://www.labrador.se/sounds.php3
seemed to recognise quite a few names there – have downloaded whatever was free for a listen later – cheers!
Strut is good.. their Nigeria 70 series, Afro Rock vol. 1, and Next stop Soweto releases are all excellent.
http://www.strut-records.com/releases
Most of the Ninja Tunes comps are cool of course. Xen Cuts is probably the best, I listen to that regularly.
Late Night Tales is a fine series, I personally value the Cinematic Orchestra edition but you might find something else of interest among the compilers.
http://www.latenighttales.co.uk/
Going back a bit, DJ Kicks was always worth a listen… K&D probably did the definitive one.
http://www.discogs.com/Kruder-Dorfmeister-DJ-Kicks/release/2951
Sound Dimension- Mojo Rocksteady beat from Soul Jazz Records is a great overview of late sixties Studio one recordings.
http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/releases/?id=11005
good suggestions, I was listening to latenightales collections yesterday, in my case Midlake, Nouvelle Vague and Trentmøller, all recommended.
Fout Tet’s Late Night Tales is a good one, too
Strut records looks great and how can I not have heard of that Late Night Tales series before? it looks like my kind of thing…thanks!
Every house needs a Flying Nun comp… the big one is the 4 cd 25th anniversary box set. As an affordable alternative, Greatest bits has 2 cds and it’s still a good overview.
https://www.flyingnun.co.nz/shop/117
Great single band compilations from down under…
The Chills, Heavenly Pop Hits
The Verlaines, You’re just too obscure for me. Absolutely no fat on this one.
http://www.smokecds.com/cd/32912
The Go-betweens, the singles 1978-90. Indie heaven.
I had a great 4AD collection from Uncut magazine a long time ago, don’t think it’s available, but here is the listing
http://www.discogs.com/Various-4AD-Uncut/release/785938
On Spotify there’s something similar, here
http://open.spotify.com/album/5k0HIpBSTbQOP5lCFmilSq
Lots of dodgy old goth cassettes I love, but I suspect this is of limited appeal.
looks pretty good….looking at the tracklisting made me realise how many great female musicians were making interesting stuff at that time…..
I was going to say Lonely is an Eyesore but the one that gets played in the car the most is Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the ’80s Underground. Lovely booklet, too.
Just looked at the tracklisting, the mind boggles!
OMD to Black Flag is a wide range of 80s music!
Nice to see they’ve included Wardance instead of Love Like Blood for the 78th time.
Seems pretty normal to me. (It’s representative of my collection.) I went to a US Uni. and they played some great stuff and some dross but it was broad selection just like that tracklist. In the USA I remember that OMD was considered as leftfield as say REM in some parts. I had a friend who let me help her choose the playlists sometimes. But after I got her to play one too many Pogues songs with swearing she had to ban me.
Nowadays I listen to Zoom FM This morning’s selection on the way to work was exceptional Got in the car to the sound of Such Great Heights by The Postal Service. Then it was India by The Psychedlic Furs, Then Buzzcocks “Ever…” And Sugarhill Gang “Rapper’s delight. Can’t remember the last tune I heard Maybe … Foo Fighters. Basically, it’s college radio, LotD. Currently playing Tom Waits “A Good Man..” Now it’s Arcade Fire “The Suburbs”. Now Godsmack – Voodoo. and now it’s J Joplin “Another Piece of My Heart”. They tend to play too much stoner rock and emo but it’s a good station
Basso.fi is the station to turn to for beats and bleeps, though they often throw in some guitars or left field folk if they fit. Basso’s online but I don’t know if you can listen outside of Finland. Not that you’d want to. Some Basso DJ’s put their shows on soundcloud.
Now Zoom’s playing Jesse’s “Rotsi” Squelching, electronic industrial sounds. Perfect for following Janis Joplin…
Just had a look at that list – yep, that’s college radio in the 80′s. And that’s not even including the jazz hours, african hours, hip hop hours (which was just starting up in the early 80′s), Latvian nose flute hours….etc. Still haven’t hears a digital or satelite radio station to touch a good college radio station.
Left of the Dial looks just absolutely incredible! Some of my all-time favourite tracks on there and ample evidence that the 80s wasn’t completely shit!
I’ve metioned before that Anagram (Cherry Red spin – off label) did a whole series of Punk Singles compilations from different punk record labels from 77 to the mid-80s.
One really interesting one is the Small Wonder one (Vol 1 , but there is also Vol 2 with the b-sides) because it really covers the entire range of what was under the puk banner at the turn of the decade – new wave/pop punk, street punk/Oi, post punk experimental stuff, anarcho punk. A great variety of bands are included – Punishment of Luxury, Carpettes, Cravats, Menace, the Wall, etc .
Other good ones in the series include
No Future – oi/punk
Riot City – early 80s studded leathers and spiky haired stuff
Fresh Records – really varied – punk, new wave, proto-goth
Raw Records – a real 77 comp, the kind of small bands from the period that never get a mention – Killjoys, Users, Unwanted, Some Chicken
There’s some other interesting ones as well
Just checked that Small Wonder and it looks really familiar…might be one from Mrs Panther’s collection, will have a look later, I know she’s got some Raw Records stuff too….
Never heard of Fresh Records though…looks interesting…
There’s a huge selection of great compilations that I’ve bought many of over the years, never had a bad one. They’re the Rough Guide music series where each disc is devoted to a specific genre of music, they’re very comprehensive and very reasonably priced, they’ve led me to dozens of artists that I might have otherwise have missed. Their catalogue is online at:
http://www.worldmusic.net/store/browse/label/rough-guide/
Another similar collection is the Putomayo series, also very extensive and also with excellent liner notes. They’re at:
http://www.putumayo.com/
Here’s a comment from their website:
Founded in 1994, the Rough Guide series is produced by World Music Network in association with Rough Guide books and delivers the best possible starting point for exploring different music from all over the world.
‘The Rough Guides’ net is cast historically as well as stylistically… the liner notes are meticulously researched and written.’
Wall Street Journal (USA)
they both look excellent , thanks, especially the Rough Guides…..I knew they did music books (I’ve got the Reggae one – it’s great and anything but rough!), but didn’t know they did CDs too…
Donds for the Rough Guide series – some lovely stuff on them.
The “Vintage Hawaiian Treasures” series is brilliant.
More locally ( to you) I thoroughly recommend Ryukyu Rare Groove, a comp of 60s-70s Okinawan pop which was partly responsible for setting me off on the voyage of discover into Asian pop etc.
If you use i-tunes there are some great value comps, 250 “hits” of 1962 for a fiver or 100 rockabilly for about 6 quid ! Variable quality, of course, but some definite pearls in the dunghills.
someone (Ejaydee??) ‘Boxed the Ryukyu RG comp a few years back, it must have caught up with other stuff at the time ‘cos I don’t think I gave it a proper listen – will definitely re-visit
I love a compilation album. It’s that ‘attention span’ thing again.
There’s some lovely stuff on this Indian compilation (and Amazon seem to have it for 26p!):
Indian Summer
There are lots of great Northern Soul compilations out there (though that might not really be your bag). These are a couple of my favourites:
Soul Survivors
The Original Northern-Soul Selection
And this comp of soul singers singing country is ace:
Dirty Laundry
Oh and I know it’s a bit pop for reggae, but this is PACKED with choons:
Young, Gifted and Black
cheers Bish…..I really should know more about Northern Soul….I think I like the idea of it more than the actual sound though..
…for some reason WordPress made me ‘approve’ your comment!
a number of small things – a collection of morr music singles from 2001 – 2007
various artists.how to kill the dj [part two]
Modular – Various Artists – Leave Them All Behind
DJ Hell* – Electronicbody-Housemusic
Various – Rough Trade Shops – Indiepop 1
Jockey Slut was a British music magazine which ran between 1993 and 2004,it’s cover Cd was called “Disco Pogo For Punks In Pumps” – I have the first 12 (don’t know if there are any more – legend has it that the printing was so cheap on the magazine it really did feel like a low rent ‘jazz mag’ (flesh not music), some say causing Daft Punk to don helmets for their cover shot – because they didn’t want to be associated with the sleaze.
I like a comp – the second hand record shop next to my flat (as a student) always asked me what would sell – so I ended up with some corkers for 50p – well they wouldn’t have sold to ‘normal’ people.