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Robyn Hitchcock is a rock’n’roll surrealist. Born in London on March 3rd, 1953 he describes his songs as “pictures you can listen to”. As much a child of Dali, De Chirico, and JG Ballard as of his 1960s musical heroes, he is a master of the absurd, reveling in the beauty of the unexpected. His first publicly visible band The Soft Boys (1976 – 81) has remained an influential art-rock touchstone for generations of musicians. “I just want to be an obscure cult fringe,” he told the NME in 1978; the NME didn’t believe him, but he’s been true to his ambition.

Both of Young Flowers' studio albums (1968's Blomsterpistolen and 1969's No. 2) are included in their entirety on this two-CD compilation, which also has a 1967 non-LP single and the three songs they contributed to the 1970 Quiet Days in Clichy soundtrack, as well as three live September 1969 recordings. With English-language liner notes, it's the definite collection of this Danish psychedelic group. As the back cover points out, they were "the first Danish hippy band, the first home-grown rock band to sing in Danish (though the majority of their recordings were in English), and the first to play the States." These are substantial achievements, so it makes a reviewer feel like a party pooper to point out that in many respects, they were a run-of-the-mill late-'60s act. Their debts to Jimi Hendrix and Cream, in both the song structures and the guitar distortion…

For a mild-mannered man whose music was always easy on the ear, Nat King Cole managed to be a figure of considerable controversy during his 30 years as a professional musician. From the late '40s to the mid-'60s, he was a massively successful pop singer who ranked with such contemporaries as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dean Martin. He shared with those peers a career that encompassed hit records, international touring, radio and television shows, and appearances in films.

Possibly the most influential artist of all time, Wonder has sold over 100 million albums and continues to produce music today.
This release will take you back to the Motown days and bring you up to the present, through the best live performance footage and the most knowledgeable of critics. Including: Interview with Lloyd Bradley, journalist and author; one of the most prominent and respected authorities from the black music scene. Bradley began contributing to NME in the 80's and has written for countless other since. Interviews with Geoff Brown and Phil Sutcliffe, veteran journalists with a combined portfolio including MOJO, Black Music Magazine, The Face, Q and Smash Hits.

For a mild-mannered man whose music was always easy on the ear, Nat King Cole managed to be a figure of considerable controversy during his 30 years as a professional musician. From the late '40s to the mid-'60s, he was a massively successful pop singer who ranked with such contemporaries as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Dean Martin. He shared with those peers a career that encompassed hit records, international touring, radio and television shows, and appearances in films. But unlike them, he had not emerged from a background as a band singer in the swing era. Instead, he had spent a decade as a celebrated jazz pianist, leading his own small group. Oddly, that was one source of controversy. For some reason, there seem to be more jazz critics than fans of traditional pop among music journalists, and Cole's transition from jazz to pop during a period when jazz itself was becoming less popular was seen by them as a betrayal.

Alan Price's second album consolidated the change of direction he'd started in early 1967, when his cover of Randy Newman's "Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear" became a big British hit. Moving away from the jazzy Animals-styled R&B-rock that he'd presented on his first album and singles, Price moved into a more original, if less powerful, brand of Newman-influenced vaudevillian pop…