La Matriarca The Libertine (1968)

The sad fact about box sets is that there's always a fan out there who thinks they could have compiled a better one. An even sadder fact is that they're often correct, and the very notion of anthologizing Van Der Graaf Generator was a fraught one for that very reason. More, perhaps, than any other band of the early-'70s prog era, VDGG polarized their fans as much as the band's blatantly inhospitable sound outraged outsiders. They cut just eight studio albums, and all eight possess a wholly different character, all the more so since the band actually broke up midway through the sequence. Past compilations, then, sensibly dealt with one or other of those eras – The Box, contrarily, swallows the entire beast whole, 34 tracks over four stuffed discs, and it gets full marks for courage, whatever its other sins may be. …

CARAVAN The World Is Yours - The Anthology 1968-1976 (2010 UK 42-track digitally remastered 4-CD album set - One of the true originators of the Canterbury sound between 1968 - 1976, 'The World Is Yours' draws freely from all Caravan's albums withkey selections from their debut, their two most widely acknowledged classics - 'If I Could Do It Again, I'd Do It All Over You' [1970] and 'In The Land Of The Grey And Pink' [1971], plus the underrated 'Waterloo Lily' [1972] on which Richard Sinclair was replaced by jazz-rock keyboardist Steve Miller.

If the final installment of ABKCO's series of box sets containing CD replicas of the Rolling Stones' original singles for Decca and London during the '60s seems not quite as impressive as the first two, there's a reason for it: it's not. But that has little to do with either the music – some of the Stones' very best is here, including "Street Fighting Man," "Honky Tonk Women," and "Jumpin' Jack Flash," all viable contenders for the greatest rock & roll single ever – or the packaging, which is every bit as lavish and loving as the first two installments. Instead, the problem is that the nine singles collected here are a bit of a hodgepodge…

Porter Wagoner - The Bottom Of The Bottle (1968) & Confessions Of A Broken Man (1966) (2013) {Omni Recording OMNI-173}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 458 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 187 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 36 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1966-68, 2013 RCA Victor / The Omni Recording Corporation | OMNI - 173
Country / Nashville Sound / Country Pop / Traditional Country

Not only does it sport one of the greatest album covers of all time, but 1968’s ‘The Bottom Of The Bottle’ is also one of the very finest of Porter Wagoner’s legendary string of concept LPs. Alcoholic cautionary-tales fashioned from pedal steel, string bass and pure pathos – Porter’s cast of inebriates shuffle from barstool to gutter to grave. ‘Wino’ opens proceedings with surreal back-alley sound-scapes and heart-rending narration, ‘Daddy And The Wine’ charts the downfall of a heart-broken man and ‘One Dime For The Wine’ a rural man’s obliteration in the faceless urban jungle.

Frank Zappa - We're Only In It For The Money (1968) + Lumpy Gravy (1968) {1995 Ryko Remaster Complete Series}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 420 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 169 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (tiff) -> 552 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1995 Rykodisc / The Zappa Family Trust | RCD 10503 / RCD 10504
Rock / Experimental Rock

The early Zappa albums were treasured by the few and totally misunderstood by the majority. The brilliant SGT. PEPPER satire of the cover should have garnered extra sales, but no. Zappa's scathing wit homed in on modern middle-class America and West Coast hippies. The album offered 19 vignettes incorporating avant garde, doo-wop, some relatively conventional pop music and a lot of hilarious dialogue that was so hip it has never dated.

THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY 50th ANNIVERSARY SUPER DELUXE BOX SET - 2018 REMASTER This lavishly packaged super-deluxe box set is part of the BMG 'Art Of The Album' series, which focuses specifically on high quality, bespoke packaged re-issues of seminal albums within the BMG catalogue, offering the highest spec audio masters and original artwork…

The most underrated of Tyrannosaurus Rex's four albums, Prophets, Seers & Sages was recorded just six months after their debut and adds little to the landscapes which that set mapped out. There is the same reliance on the jarring juxtaposition of rock rhythms in a folky discipline; the same abundance of obscure, private mythologies; the same skewed look at the latest studio dynamics, fed through the convoluted wringer of the duo's imagination…