The Early Years

The Move were the best and most important British group of the late '60s that never made a significant dent in the American market. Through the band's several phases (which were sometimes dictated more by image than musical direction), their chief asset was guitarist and songwriter Roy Wood, who combined a knack for Beatlesque pop with a peculiarly British, and occasionally morbid, sense of humor. On their final albums (with considerable input from Jeff Lynne), the band became artier and more ambitious, hinting at the orchestral rock that Wood and Lynne would devise for the Electric Light Orchestra. The Move, however, always placed more emphasis on the pop than the art, and never lost sight of their hardcore rock & roll roots. The Early Years is a twenty track collection covering most of the band's singles and B-sides from 1966 to 1970. While it falls short of the superior, though out-of-print, Best of the Move on A&M, it's the next best thing.

Credited to Merrell & the Exiles, this is a selection of rarities and unreleased material by Merrell Wayne Fankhauser's mid-'60s band, essentially the one that cut the great rare psych-folk-rock album that was credited to Fapardokly. It's pretty much a collection of outtakes with a few rare non-LP singles thrown in, and as such doesn't measure up to the best of Fankhauser's '60s material. Often derivative of the British Invasion, folk-rock, and early '60s teen pop, it's not bad, just not terribly memorable. The fake British Invasion of cuts like "Send Me Your Love" rank as the highlights. It also has his late-'60s non-LP single cover of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," although for some reason it's missing one of his mid-'60s non-LP 45s, "Can't We Get Along"/"That's All I Want From You" - it was reissued on a rarities tape that Merrell himself released, if you can find it…