On the surface, it would seem that the British blues boom has been well served by compilation discs over the years. On closer inspection, that hasn’t really been the case at all: the best anthologies tend to be label specific (Blue Horizon’s ‘The Blue Horizon Story’, Decca’s ‘The Blues Scene’ and Immediate’s ‘Blues Anytime’ series, later repackaged as an excellent four CD set by Charly Records). The bulk of the rest seem too concerned with repackaging bits of ‘Blues Anytime’ with cheap, inferior packaging. There hasn’t ever really been a decent compilation covering a lot of ground from different labels, or one unafraid to dig a little deeper beyond the usual suspects.
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RATT – The Atlantic Albums: 1984-1990
Armed with the swagger of Motley Crue, the crunch of mid 70s Sweet and a bunch of great choruses, Ratt briefly became massive stars in the US during the mid 80s. With a couple of videos gaining heavy rotation on MTV and a best selling debut album, they were among the melodic metal/glam scene’s most successful acts.
None of that applies in the UK, even though Ratt got of lots of positive press from the rock magazines. With MTV Europe barely off the ground, they were without an outlet for their videos and a rock-averse radio system meant the singles got no real airplay. As a result, Ratt were unknowns outside of the keener rock fans’ community; the closest they came to a hit was having their second album scrape the top fifty of the album chart in 1985. It’s hardly a surprise that, for UK record buyers, most of their albums have spent most of their life in an out of print limbo. For those British fans, most Ratt discs – save for 1990’s ‘Detonator’ – were procured on vinyl, as cheap imports from cut-out bins.
RENAISSANCE – Turn Of The Cards
For British progressive and art rock, the relatively short period between March 1973 and December 1974 was particularly fruitful. Roxy Music released ‘For Your Pleasure‘ and ‘Stranded’, Genesis released two of their most ambitious works in ‘Selling England By The Pound’ and ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’, while King Crimson gave us ‘Larks’ Tongues In Aspic’ and Emerson, Lake & Palmer tipped the scales of self-indulgence with their ‘Brain Salad Surgery’. Meanwhile, Yes continued their long voyage into the epic with the help of ‘Relayer’, and Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield released albums that would eventually become worldwide all-time best-sellers. Given the quality and love for each of these records, it’s hardly surprising that, in comparison, ‘Turn of The Cards’ – the fourth studio release from British symphonic rock combo Renaissance – hardly ever gets talked about.
Four disc box set of The Fall’s Reformation Post TLC coming in April
Following the mammoth 6CD box set containing a wealth of Fall recordings surrounding ‘Hex Enduction Hour’, the FALL SOUND ARCHIVE series takes a massive leap forward to 2007 in March with a massive four disc reissue of ‘Reformation Post TLC’.
GLENN HUGHES – Songs In The Key Of Rock
With the string of superb albums starting with 1992’s ‘From Now On…’ through to 1999’s ‘The Way It Is’, the legendary Glenn Hughes released his most consistent block of work ever. Moving into the new century, both ‘Return of The Crystal Karma’ (2000) and ‘Soul of A New Machine’ were enjoyable enough, but sometimes lacked the overall consistency of those 90s albums. In 2003, Hughes released ‘Songs In The Key of Rock’, an album that pretty much showed off his full vocal range on a collection of brilliantly constructed hard rock tunes.