British Pop

Mark King's 1999 solo album One Man features ten tracks written the year after his group Level 42 disbanded. These songs reflect the emotional depth King gained as a result of leaving his band and maturing as an artist. A reflective but accessible work, One Man is an individual artistic statement.

Back in 1975, Maxine Nightingale became an overnight sensation in the UK when her latest single, ‘Right Back Where We Started From’, stormed into the Top 10. Thereafter, the track’s catchy appeal spread like wildfire across the globe, topping the charts in Canada and the US and was a massive hit in most other countries.

Of course, "Pop Muzik" was the only song on M's debut album, New York-London-Paris-Munich, to become a big hit ("Moonlight and Muzak" and "That's the Way the Money Goes" were minor chart entries in the U.K.), but there's actually quite a bit of entertaining music on the record. Granted, the sound of the record is more entertaining than the songwriting, but with its synthesized, danceable beats, big, catchy hooks, and glossy "futuristic" production, it's a terrific new wave artifact. Collectables' Pop Muzik is a retitled reissue of M's debut album, New York-London-Paris-Munich.

Crawling Up A Hill is a fascinating document of a genre that, though relatively short-lived, would have a seismic influence on the subsequent development of rock music.

Three CDs. Four-hour anthology of recordings that anticipated the late 70s Power Pop movement. Featuring Badfinger, Slade, The Move, Stealers Wheel, Pilot, Dave Edmunds, Brinsley Schwarz, Honeybus, The Kinks, The Who, etc. While the early 70s musical landscape in Britain was largely dominated by introspective singer/songwriters, Bubblegum Pop and underground Rock bands, a handful of acts bravely continued to pursue the classic mid-60s group sound. With the aid of increasingly sophisticated recording studios, they majored in crisp, muscular, hook-laden three-minute pop songs, bursting with chiming Rickenbacker guitars, irresistible choruses and Beatles/Beach Boys-inspired close harmonies. A few (Slade, Pilot, the ill-starred Badfinger) found commercial success, but the likes of Starry Eyed And Laughing, Shape Of The Rain and Octopus proved to be the right bands at the wrong time - too late for the British Invasion that had swept America in the mid-60s, too early to hitch a ride on the late 70s Power Pop bandwagon.