Hit Single Collectables - Chris Farlowe

Advantages: Some good tracks
Disadvantages: See text re comments on packaging, and also for likelihood of its being superseded

...For their first few years, the Rolling Stones (like the Beatles) had little control over the issue of their albums in the US. This resulted in their American label putting out several collections consisting of one or two singles A- and B-sides, plus a hotchpotch of tracks from then-current or recent UK albums, and occasionally the odd item that had not been released in the home market. Unfortunately for British fans, these US artefacts with their often cack-handed selections and cringeworthy titles are those which made it onto CD in the mid-90s. For instance, ‘England’s Newest Hitmakers’, the debut album which we once knew as plain and simple ‘Rolling Stones’, may have sounded really groovy and a right-on name-grabber to Uncle Sam’s teenagers in 1964, but nearly 40 years later it’s a bit passé... Read review

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Advantages: Exhaustive compilation of their heyday; well-annotated booklet
Disadvantages: A few so-so tracks

...and curios. Best of all has to be ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, which unfortunately appears here only in the 5-minute edit, pared down as it was to a B-side - you’ll have to look elsewhere for the full 7-minutes-plus epic. (As it appears on CD 3 in this collection, which has a total playing time of 49 minutes, while the other two clock in at nearly 70 minutes each, this seems a tad niggardly). ‘Memo From Turner’ is a strange off-the-wall item from the controversial movie ‘Performance’, with Ry Cooder on slide guitar, was first issued as a solo single by Mick Jagger in 1970. ‘Out Of Time’, released for the first time in 1975 -nine years after it was recorded - is in effect another solo outing by Mick, with session musicians. Oddly it was released to compete with a reissue of Chris Farlowe's version (a No. 1 in 1966) in 1975, and even more... Read review

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Advantages: Brill band, outstanding music...
Disadvantages: none.....

...In the mid-1980s, the Pet Shop Boys arrived to the scene with their first single "West End Girls". Since then, the band has put out a brilliant collection of albums and hit singles. In 1991, the band released their first compilation album, "Discography-The Complete Singles Collection". "Discography" shows a lot of the singles from 1985 through 1991 from the duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. Four of these singles would become number one in the U.K. charts. With Neil Tennant's masterful lyrics and Chris Lowe's musical arrangements, the Pet Shop Boys showed a lot of what the 80s was about. Tennant talked about boredom, greed, homosexuality, yuppies, love, suburban life, and religion from his own experience with Lowe giving it background music. Songs like "West End Girls", "Suburbia", "Rent", "It's A Sin", "Opportunities (Let's Make... Read review

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