T.rex

German compilation features all the T. Rex A-sides released between 1972 & 1978 on disc one & 28 B-sides on disc two, 16 page colour booklet. First, full disclosure is necessary as to what's missing. Ready? On this glorious double-CD collection, there isn't one track from T. Rex's Electric Warrior. That's right, "Bang a Gong," "Mambo Sun," and "Jeepster" are all absent. Why? Simple: it appears Warner is recalcitrant to license that wondrous album to anyone in any form. It turns out that this is simply a small complaint because none of the tracks from Electric Warrior should be separated from its full corpus anyway – it is an album in the purest and more literal sense of the world. Getting to what is here, listeners do get tracks from that beautiful slab The Slider as well as Tanx, Light of Love , Bolan's Zip Gun, Dandy in the Underworld, Futuristic Dragon, and a slew of 45s never issued on LP.

Recorded during Marc Bolan's U.S. visits during 1971 and 1972, Spaceball is the first full re-counting of four American radio sessions previously made partially available as a bonus LP within the Marc label's Till Dawn compilation in 1985. Eight songs, taped in L.A. in 1972, are reprised from that set; 11 more are collected here. The overall mood of the two CDs is sparse, but astonishingly dynamic, with the earliest session – taped for WBAI, New York, in June 1971 – especially remarkable. It opens with a pair of unaccompanied Bolan performances, previewing the as-yet-unreleased "Cosmic Dancer" and "Planet Queen." The guitar heavy "Elemental Child" follows, a surprising inclusion given the song's freak-out dynamics, but it's an effective piece, all the more so after bandmates Mickey Finn and bassist Steve Currie join in a few minutes into the song.

Buoyed by two U.K. number one singles in "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru," The Slider became T. Rex's most popular record on both sides of the Atlantic, despite the fact that it produced no hits in the U.S. The Slider essentially replicates all the virtues of Electric Warrior, crammed with effortless hooks and trashy fun. All of Bolan's signatures are here – mystical folk-tinged ballads, overt sexual come-ons crooned over sleazy, bopping boogies, loopy nonsense poetry, and a mastery of the three-minute pop song form. The main difference is that the trippy mix of Electric Warrior is replaced by a fuller, more immediate-sounding production.

The album that essentially kick-started the U.K. glam rock craze, Electric Warrior completes T. Rex's transformation from hippie folk-rockers into flamboyant avatars of trashy rock & roll. There are a few vestiges of those early days remaining in the acoustic-driven ballads, but Electric Warrior spends most of its time in a swinging, hip-shaking groove powered by Marc Bolan's warm electric guitar…

These "Final Cuts" are an odds-and-sods collection of music Marc Bolan had been working on – and it's in various stages of completion – before he was killed in 1977. Some of the music here appears on other recordings of late cuts; some are reworkings of tunes or alternate takes of tracks that appeared on Futuristic Dragon or Dandy in the Underworld; some never appeared at all. You have to be a hardcore T. Rex and/or Bolan fan to want this music. There is a weird version of "To Know You Is to Love You" with a vocal by Gloria Jones (the disco star who was Bolan's wife), and the rest has either new tags, or more or less guitars, or reworked melodies. You get the picture. Usually Edsel is spot-on, but this is dodgy. About the only thing you can really compliment the compilation producers for is good-quality sound – it's top-notch for what it is.

Marc Bolan died in September 1977, exactly two weeks before his thirtieth birthday. His achievements in the last seven years of his life included over 20 UK hit singles, 11 of which made the top 10 in less than three years. This compilation features 14 of those singles, along with some celebrated b-sides and album tracks.

T. Rex - Bolan's Zip Gun (1975) {2CD Set Edsel Deluxe Edition MEDCD 718 rel 2002}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 756 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 256 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 167 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1975, 2002 Demon / Edsel | MEDCD 718
Rock / Glam Rock

Released in early 1975, BOLAN'S ZIP GUN appeared after T. Rex had been out of the limelight for a period of time. Rumors abounded about the supposed ill health of Marc Bolan, but beyond the rumors was the undeniable fact that T. Rex was no longer the sensation it had been in its early-'70s heyday. This two-disc 2002 edition is packaged in a digipak and plastic slipcase.Disc One includes 2 non-album single sides in addition to the original album. Disc two includes 19 "work in progress" versions and demos, which mirror the original album's running order.