VA Classics Rock Icons (2008)

Ace's You Heard Them Here First: First Recordings by Famous or Influential Artists is more of an archaeology project than its companion disc, You Heard It Here First! That 2008 compilation featured the first recorded versions of pop, rock, and soul classics that became hits in the hands of other artists, whereas this set unearths the first recordings of superstars, so almost without exception neither the songs nor the names on the back cover of You Heard Them Here First are familiar, but the sounds often are. Some artists are heard in what would later become their familiar settings – Dan Penn does some wicked Southern soul as Danny Lee on "Stop Calling Me Baby," Gram Parsons' country-rock was fully intact in the International Submarine Band, and the only thing that separates the Byrds from the Beefeaters is their name – but You Heard Them Here First is at its most fun when it forces listeners to draw their own connections, to hear the incipient glam growl within David Bowie as he's singing "Liza Jane" as Davie Jones or to listen to Lewis Reed's "Your Love" and find Lou Reed testing out vocal phrasing he'd later do during the Velvet Underground's upbeat moments.