Kid Creole & The Coconuts Wonderful Thing (2000)

Influential and diverse New York band led by pop music's one and only big band, salsa, disco, no wave kingpin.

"Tropical Gangsters" is the 3rd album by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, released on May 10, 1982. Originally conceived as a solo album by band leader August Darnell and titled Wise Guy, his label ZE Records pressured him to change it to a Kid Creole and the Coconuts record and to make it more commercial sounding in order to relieve the label's financial problems. Despite the tensions this caused within the band and Darnell's complaint that the subsequent record was a "cop-out", the more dance-pop oriented sound helped it reached #145 on the Billboard 200 album chart, representing the group's commercial breakthrough in their home country. However, to the surprise of Darnell and his record company Tropical Gangsters was a huge success in Australia and New Zealand, Europe, and in particular the UK, where the album peaked at #3 in the UK Albums Chart and yielded three Top 10 singles. Tropical Gangsters made Darnell a worldwide star, and the album remains both his and the ZE label's most successful record by far.

Unlike other labels subjected to exhaustive multi-disc retrospectives like this whopping ten-disc Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records – The First Fifty Years, Warner Brothers never embodied a scene or sound: they've always embodied what a major label should be – a dominant force that chronicles and dictates the sound of the mainstream. Coming out at the tail-end of 2008, when the influence of major labels is on a slow steady decline, Revolutions in Sound can be seen as a portrait of a time that's beginning to recede into the past: a time when there was such a thing as mass entertainment, when the pop audience all shared a common bond of hit records they either loved or rallied against. Perhaps the greatest things about this monumental box set is that it captures that colossus while also illustrating that for a while, majors did take risks. Of course, Warner was the riskiest of all the majors, never held back by an anti-rock & roll sourpuss like Mitch Miller, who struggled to keep CBS out of the tumult of the '60s (this with no less than Bob Dylan as the label's flagship rock artist). Instead, Warner embraced the underground, recording some of the strangest to shake out of the '60s, and that adventure fits a label that turned to rock & roll to help establish themselves as a real player at the turn of the '60s.

To coincide with the 50th anniversary of Island Records, UMTV releases a 3CD set of classic Island hits plus a number of unique cover versions from current Island Artists. Founded by the legendary Chris Blackwell, Island has been long renowned as the most musically influential record label and has been consistently successful over the years. One of their earliest hits "My Boy Lollipop" by Millie is included, as well as a host more hits and cover versions, including an exclusive version of "Monkey Man" by Amy Winehouse. The album is sure to appeal to Island Records aficionados as well as all music fans.

The 80s was the decade of the 12 inch. In the UK, all previous instalments of this series sold extremely well and received widespread critical acclaim. The Guardian called the series a "genuine act of music archaeology". From the pop dance genius of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax and Donna Summer's I Feel Love through to the more alternative Lullaby by The Cure, and onto classics such as Teardrops by Womack & Womack… This 3CD compilation has it all, in its full 12" glory.