Originally appearing on LP from the Bam Caruso label in the 1980s, and then on CD on the Past & Present imprint in 2003, these first ten volumes (boxed) in the Rubble Collection were conceived and collected by Phil Smee. For fans of the Nuggets series, both the two American volumes and the British Nuggets, you won't find a lot of overlap. The Nuggets comps were and are for people who want what was at least the stuff of legend, if not readily available. The collection here digs deep and are, for the most part, flawless in what they present. This set, and its companion volumes 11-20 (a separate box), are very different creatures. For starters, they dig a lot deeper into the hopelessly obscure 45s and tapes of Brit psychedelia, freakbeat, Mod, and pop.
Increasingly, and especially in a day and age where music is so widely and readily available thanks to advanced technologies, when a company or act wants to make a good box set, it had better deliver. To its credit, Beggars Banquet did just that with Rare Cult, an astoundingly comprehensive and entertaining collection that packs in 90 tracks over the course of six discs…