British Pop

Berserker is the sixth solo studio album by the English new wave musician Gary Numan, released on 9 November 1984, it was his first album to be released under Numan's own record label, Numa Records.

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.

Various Artists - Gathered from Coincidence: The British Folk-Pop Sound of 1965-1966 (2018) {3CD Set, Grapefruit CRSEGBOX043}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 791 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 485 Mb
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© 1965-66, 2018 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Records | CRSEGBOX043
Rock / Pop / Folk Pop / Folk Rock / Psychedelic Rock

Prior to the early Sixties, folk and pop musicians inhabited largely different worlds. There were folk records that had become crossover pop hits, but in essence there was little or no common ground in terms of instrumentation or ideologies. But in the wake of the British beat/R&B boom (or, if you were in America, the British Invasion) and the emergence of Bob Dylan, such barriers were broken down for good. With British acts making music that, for the first time in nascent pop history, matched the quality of their American counterparts, suddenly everything was grist to the mill and musical cross-pollination was almost de rigueur.

Helen Shapiro is remembered today by younger pop culture buffs as the slightly awkward actress/singer in Richard Lester's 1962 debut feature film, It's Trad, Dad. From 1961 until 1963, however, Shapiro was England's teenage pop music queen, at one point selling 40,000 copies daily of her biggest single, "Walking Back to Happiness," during a 19-week chart run. A deceptively young 14 when she was discovered, Shapiro had a rich, expressive voice properly sounding like the property of someone twice as old, and she matured into a seasoned professional very quickly.