Germfree X Ray Spex

Amazon Review by David Sheridan
Lots of good new wave era chestnuts on this compilation. I wonder where perhaps Talking Heads, Echo & the Bunnymen or Graham Parker are, why no Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds/Rockpile, why no "Girl of My Dreams" by Bram Tchaikovsky, and they definitely seemed to put this together having drawn a somewhat arbitrary line in the sand somewhere between punk and new wave (no Pistols, no Clash, but the Ramones and Sham 69 are here). And then we get the Tubes (almost more musical theatre than new wave) and Hazel O'Connor (wtf?). And they also include whatever a Jilted John is. There's more than a little overlap with some other compilations and box sets out there (although I still know of no proper full sized new wave box set, Rhino, where are you?), but this will send those of us of a certain age nostalgically back to the days of Jimmy Carter in the White House, lining up for 79 cent gallons of gas and skinny ties with the knot a few inches below your collar…remember the first time you heard My Sharona? Maybe in your Ford Maverick while sitting in one of those gas lines…