Heard Them First

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.

Unlike other artists in Ace's ongoing, excellent Heard Them Here First series, the New York Dolls do not have an extensive catalog. They released only two albums while they were active, and this paltry discography forces compilers Ian Johnston and Mick Patrick to widen their overview to include early demos and live recordings from when the band started to fray but even that expanded overview accounts for nine tracks, hardly enough for a sizeable compilation. So, Johnston and Patrick do the smart thing: they add in cuts that were in the repertoire of Johnny Thunders, David Johansen and his swinging alter ego Buster Poindexter, plus songs the reunited Dolls performed in the new millennium. This isn't everything these post-Dolls offshoots covered, of course – notably, nothing from Johansen's hit Animals medley is here – but the compilers sharply sculpt Lipstick, Powder & Paint! to reflect the aesthetic of the New York Dolls, trading heavily on the trashiest, funniest R&B, pop, blues, rock & roll, and soul from the days before the Beatles. Unsurprisingly, the songs here are usually big and bawdy, flirting with vaudeville – in this context, the boasts of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Don't Start Me Talking" don’t seem threatening, they seem almost camp – and that's the pleasure of the whole thing. The New York Dolls had a very specific aesthetic, one that worshipped the past while simultaneously satirizing it, and Lipstick, Powder & Paint! captures that delicate balance not through performance but through selection, which is something of a wondrous thing to behold.

The previous volumes in Ace Heard Them Here First series focused on Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, the Ramones and the New York Dolls. This edition features the original versions of numbers recorded by Dusty Springfield, the UK's premier female vocalist of the 1960s. Dusty's expertise as an interpretive singer prevented her from being viewed as a cover artist and allowed her the luxury of recording the songs of her favourite American performers and writers. The selection spans Marie Knight's Nothing In The World', a super song Dusty recorded on her first LP, through to K.T. Oslin's 'Where Is A Woman To Go', a highlight of Dusty's swansong album. The Marie Knight track makes its CD debut here, along with 'Love Me By Name' by Lesley Gore, 'Packin' Up' by Margie Hendrix and Carla Thomas' 'Every Ounce Of Strength'. Reflecting Dusty's impeccable taste in music, this Ace CD also includes songs by her preferred songwriting teams Goffin & King and Bacharach & David and several great examples from the Motown catalogue. Compilation and notes by Mick Patrick and Malcolm Baumgart.

2014 collection that traces the career of David Bowie via songs he recorded by other writers. Presented in the (approximate) sequence he recorded his interpretations, the collection kicks off with Paul Revere & the Raiders' original version of 'Louie - Go Home', as covered by the 17 year-old Bowie as leader of Davie Jones & the King Bees in 1964, and concludes with 'I Took a Trip (On a Gemini Spaceship)' by maverick Texan 'outsider' musician the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, a song Bowie included on his 2002 album 'Heathen'. While promoting 'Heathen', Bowie recalled that he had been introduced to the Stardust Cowboy's work when they were with the same record company: '[They] gave me a stack of singles by this guy and I thought they were unbelievably atrocious, but in that wonderful way that you couldn't stop listening to them, they were so awful.' There are no prizes for guessing from whom Ziggy's surname was borrowed.

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Ruins is the new and eagerly awaited album from Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit. This new album finds First Aid Kit as you've never heard them before: wounded and biting back hard. While Ruins follows the traditions of the classic folk rock sound that First Aid Kit revived via their breakthrough album Stay Gold (2014) and previous releases The Big Black And The Blue (2010) and The Lion's Roar (2012), the difference is that this time they've lived, and the results are intense.

Ruins is the new and eagerly awaited album from Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit. This new album finds First Aid Kit as you've never heard them before: wounded and biting back hard. While Ruins follows the traditions of the classic folk rock sound that First Aid Kit revived via their breakthrough album Stay Gold (2014) and previous releases The Big Black And The Blue (2010) and The Lion's Roar (2012), the difference is that this time they've lived, and the results are intense.