One of the things that will eventually die with all this music downloading malarkey is the cheapo compilation. This is a shame as they were an integral part of the record buying experience. Whether we’re talking about 4-LP box sets of James Last’s greatest hits or Top of the Pops albums with bikini-clad girls on the front inviting you in, these audio equivalents of Corgi books were there waiting to cash in on whatever the craze was at the time (my elder brother even once received Hits for a Truck Driving Man as a present at the height of the CB Radio craze; it contained Convoy, Keep on Truckin‘ and … er many other trucking themed hits).
At the start of the 80s, Heavy Metal was bothering the charts so much that it was inevitable that someone was going to step in and rush out a compilation of the best of today’s metal sounds. It was also pretty inevitable that the someone would be K-Tel.
The result was Axe Attack, which advertised itself as a solid collection of the very best in Heavy Metal, and to be fair, most of the big hitters at the time were there: AC/DC, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Rainbow, Whitesnake etc. The record achieved this impressive role call by adhering to the classic K-Tel strategy of cramming as many songs onto the record as they could and to Hell with things like sound quality (you get the idea that if they could have, they would have done away with the record label in the middle so they could have squeezed on some Uriah Heep).
It’s easy to laugh at K-Tel, but in the end, this record was probably more influential than any other in introducing Heavy Metal to a new generation of plukey young boys, me among them (actually I was too young even to be plukey; certainly young enough for the line “Well I make a pussy purr with a stroke of my hand” from Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever to go flying right over my head). Girlschool’s great cover version of Race with the Devil is below.
You’ll always get shit compilations free with music magazines, and old stock will forever be available in Poundland or Oxfam. Don’t worry about it, Thumper.
But they’ll be OLD stuff Dave! Who’s going to carry on the tradition so that the next generation will have their own versions of “Top of the Pops”, “Hits for a Truck Driving Man” or “The Greatest Overblown Dull Anthems Album in the World Ever!”?
Well, there was actually a feature on this on The One Show the other week and Chris de Burgh said there’s no need for concern as everyone will always enjoy the convenience and cultural prosperity of a compilation CD.
Are you saying you know more about this topic than Chris de Burgh, a man who wrote A Spaceman Came Travelling and Lady in Red>
My cousin was going to let me have his copy of Axe Attack in about 1983 until my mother stopped him. Bah!
I was reading in a paper a few months ago that multi-artist compilation albums are the only things released in ‘physical’ formats that are actually in quite rude health. I’d put it down to in-car entertainment, and the fact that MP3 player jack points are still only an extra cost option on most new cars. And who’s buying new cars thses days?
Do I think I know more about the subject that someone who uses the term “cultural prosperity” when talking about things like “The Emmerdale Linedance Party Album”? Yes I do, Dave, God damn it, I do.
You can see his point thought, Thumper. NOW! tapes are the musical equivilant to finding carbon samples in ice cores. And both tell us that the world is fucked.
The multi-album compilations started to get out of hand in the 90s though didn’t they? All those double CDs with up to 50 damn songs on them. If they are still around and doing well, I expect at least bands like EMF, Steppenwolf, Mansun and Space are still getting reguar royalty checks. And that is just plain WRONG.
And BA, you missed out on that Axe Attack. What a bloody album. And there was an Axe Attack II as well, with a cover even worse than that one. Almost exactly the same line up of groups, but with Samson occupying the Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush slot.
I have nothin against comps in principle.
However just like the free CD’s you get with Classic Rock these days. It’s always the same bands singing the same fuckin songs.
Saxon’s bizarre 747 Strangers in the night anyone?
Cue everyone’s favourite comp……..
Compilations do tend to be predictable, don’t they? It’s like when you see the names of Steppenwolf, Bachman-Turner Overdrive or Toni Basil on the cover you go “Ooh I wonder which songs?”
My favourite compilation is probably a fairly weird one called “Stay Awake” that came out in 1989 or so, and had artists of the era covering songs from Disney films. It’s really damn good, despite having both Michael Stipe and Sinead O’Conner on it. Worth it for Tom Waits’ version of “Heigh Ho (The Dwarves’ Marching Song)” really.
British compilations now tend to feature over a hundred – that’s right over a HUNDRED! – tracks, see 101 Eighties songs, 101 Driving Songs, ad nauseum, for more details.
They’re the sort of thing people toss into their trolley at Tesco’s as they usually don’t cost much more than a tenner.
A HUNDRED songs! Good God, a combination of cheap CD manufacturing costs and illegal downloading has made K-Tel’s dream come true!
I bet half of those 101 songs don’t really fit the category of the album. I had that “Best Punk Album in the World Ever!” in the 90s and half the artists weren’t really punk (B-52s, Elvis Costello etc). I bet that 101 Driving Songs starts off with stuff like “Born to be Wild”, but by half way through it’s having to resort to muck like the Eagles or Foreigner.
I had that Best Punk album, by halfway through CD2 they had resorted to a full-length versions of The Tubes’ White Punks on Dope and Television’s Marquee Moon, as well as a poetry track by John Cooper Clarke. And, of course, The Stooges, The Ramones and The New York Dolls were all very much absent.
Yup, I remember that. The Tubes were desperate, weren’t they? I thought the Ramones were on it though, wasn’t “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” there?
My brother had the inevitable follow-up “The Best Punk Blah Blah ..2!” and the quality level had slipped significantly, it was all filler. Punk continues to get lionised but the musical legacy is a bit thin, and a lot of it hasn’t aged too well. To be fair though, I think the years that followed (1978-80) were real golden years, when a lot of different genres (New Wave, Electronica, Soul, Ska/Reggae, Metal, Pop) were strong. “101 songs from 1979″, I’d buy that. As long as it didn’t have Darts on it.
Darts, you’ll be pleased to hear, are on te comeback trail. Hurrah!
Thinking about it now, Sheena… could well be on there. I’ve still got it somewhere but can’t be arsed to go and look.
Perhaps it would have been better served if it was called The Greatest Punk, Pub Rock and New Wave Album in the World Ever! Especially as it had Joe Jackson on there, about as un-punk as it’s possible to be before you get to twin-necked guitars and concept albums.
Darts, you’ll be pleased to hear, are on the comeback trail. Hurrah!
Thinking about it now, Sheena… could well be on there. I’ve still got it somewhere but can’t be arsed to go and look.
Perhaps it would have been better served if it was called The Greatest Punk, Pub Rock and New Wave Album in the World Ever! Especially as it had Joe Jackson on there, about as un-punk as it’s possible to be before you get to twin-necked guitars and concept albums.
Luxury! That’s what K-Tel compilations were, when I were a lad.
No, we had to cut out and collect 52 coupons from Sounds, then send them off with a 50p postal order, wait another 52 weeks for delivery, then try to intercept the postman before he tried to squeeze “The Sounds Heavy Metal Album” through the letter box.
Never mind the mayhem caused when they upped the ante, and you needed 144 coupons for the double album “Killer Watts”. Tears were shed, mark my words.
BA,
Darts are making a comeback? Jesus, who next? Liquid Gold? The Belle Stars? Racey??? “Some girls will / some girls won’t / some girls needalottaluvvinanda / some girls don’t”.
I hate Racey.
Mr. H,
I saved up for a Neat Records compilation tape from Sounds or Kerrang! way back in the day, when magazines made you pay for the music (plus p&p). It was shite, apart from Venom’s “Bursting Out” which stuck out like a sore thumb and sounded quite similar to the racket that me and my best friend would make with an out of tune acoustic guitar, some pillows and a pair of knitting needles.
Racey were great. Almost as good as Pilot or Showaddywaddy.
I was at a wedding dance a few years back in Scotland and “Hey Rock & Roll” filled the dance floor like nothing else. It has cross-generational appeal, that’s what I’m saying. Plus it has lots of stomping potential, you know: “Hey Rock & Roll” STOMP STOMP STOMP. That always goes down well at a Highland wedding. I guess Showaddywaddy and Slade are more popular these days because no one will listen to Gary Glitter any more; they fill that vacuum.
Except for the army of Gary Glitter fans, Thumps. He’s still selling records, apparently. And there’s an American Football team that runs out to one of his songs every week, despite his being a convicted diddler. Funny old world.
Ahhh Racey……Sum girls do…..llalalalala some girls don’t…llalalalalalal
Sum girls need a lota lovin and a sum girls need strangled and buried in a shallow grave
I paraphrase obviously..
Is that the Morrissey cover version you’re singing there, Tom?
I think you will find that was far to tuneful. Morrissey manages to fit at least 2000 words into a sentence that doesn’t rhyme. No mean feat.
There are some songs he sings where I am convinced he is just reading from a Telephone directory to music.