http://www.amazon.co.uk/Definitive-Sound-Atlantic-Soul/dp/tracks/B000025...

And these, though a bugger to find now I'd imagine, are wonderful:

http://www.emicatalogue.com/soundofthecity/Memphis.html

the following, both composed of selections from the Vertigo label (praised elsewhere on the Word blog) which was a great source of underground material in the late 60s and early 70s.

Time Machine - A Vertigo Retrospective, is a 3 disc set with a highly informative booklet. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Machine-Retrospective-Various-Artists/dp/B0...

Vertigo Mixed, where Andy Votel has taken two, three and four Vertigo tracks at a time and blended them together. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, it's ideal for "power listening", as you can get a feel for around 40 artists in 75 minutes of music. See http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vertigo-Mixed-Votel-Various-Artists/dp/B0007ULJM...

"Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968"

Pretty faultless collection of 60's garage punk and psych available as a boxed set or handy single CD's. Recommended by Word reader fave Andy Partridge too.

http://www.rhino.com/store/productdetail.lasso?number=75466

Choice of songs is nigh on perfect - I've tracked down albums and recordings by most of the bands featured but the fact is that they usually only have ONE decent song anyway and it is the one Lenny chooses!

This LP set me on the path of enlightenment

but a contender for my favourite album of all time.

an amazing compilation of the cheesiest (Roberta & Donny) to the freakiest (Little Sister's 'Somebody's Watching You', an incredibly messed-up and brilliant Sly Stone side project) and all points in between in the soul output of the Greatest Label Of All Time. And a gloriously phallic sleeve image to boot.

What's that "Bumpers" album?

I'm sure you've got this one if you've already got Gather In the Mushrooms. The follow up has yet more great Acid Folk tracks from the late 60's/early 70's.

Can also recommend the Vertigo comps mentioned above. There were similar boxsets for the Island and Harvest labels, and another one, Spirit Of Joy, rounding up the Polydor label from the same era has been released this week.

Going down the Nuggets route will lead you on to the Pebbles and Rubble et al comps. There are literally thousands of psych/garage compliations. Collecting them becomes a very pleasurable but addictive (and expensive) business...

You'll never listen to modern sounds again

That Bumpers looks good. And yes, Early Morning Hush is fantastic too.

I'm off to Amazon.

4 CDs. Marvellous. Worth every penny.

...the acid folk ones, check out one called 'Strange Folk' which juxtaposes the classic 60s/70s stuff with newer acts like Devendra Banhart, Espers and Tuung. There were also soul, country and jazz ones in the same series which I haven't heard- the jazz one I had most of the content anyway, I think.

There's also a mammoth 4-cd box set called 'Anthems In Eden' which must have been a licensing nightmare as it features almost every key act from that 60s/70s UK folk revival. Also has another disc dedicated to acid folk.

The progressive rock era is heavily covered by all those excellent label box-sets noted above; there's two Deram ones, an Island one, a Vertigo one and the Polydor one mentioned above. Lots of good stuff on those.

I agree on the Nuggets compilation, almost all of those acts had about one or two good tracks at best so a compilation makes sense. In the UK, there was a series called 'The Perfumed Garden' which had lots of rare (and top quality) British psych singles. There was a series of 'Scene' CDs put out by Deram featuring psychedelia, freakbeat, R & B, blues, beat and Northern Soul which have some rare stuff on them.

As for soul music, I have lots of compilations. The 'Motown Gold' and 'Atlantic Gold' ones are great starting points, and there's one called 'Platinum Soul Legends' which has Stax and Philadelphia International stuff as well. Warner put out some good funk compilations like 'Funkology' and 'The Ultimate 80s Soul Weekender'.

British blues is again well served by another Sanctuary box-set called 'The Hoochie Coochie Men- A History Of UK Blues' which has rare live material.

Had a few bargains lately; got hold of a 20-disc set of jazz with a disc devoted to a single artist for £5 yesterday, and 'The Classic Experience' 8-disc box set for £2 in Zavvi's sale.

I love those old Island samplers like "Bumpers" "You Can all Join In" and "El Pea". I also used to play all those CBS "Rock Machine" samplers (as they were then known). They should reisssue these old samplers. The Pye series "Autumn Almanac" Etc is brilliant (Pebbles???). The Dave Godin series is a treasure chest of old soul. I laso have a fabulous Ze label one with Coati Mundi, Was Not Was, Material etc which is exceptional.

was released at around the time of the Easy Listening/Club Indigo thing that was going on in 1995 and gave birth to the Mike Flowers Pops. It is a FANTASTIC compilation of stuff from the Studio 2 Stereo label, and compiled with love and not irony. Lets not forget, also, that 1995 was just before the internet meant you could pretty much track down any lost gems - I thought that sort of music was lost forever until the Sound Gallery. I still love it.

All these record company compilations have been overtaken somewhat by the monthly onslaught of music magazine freebies.

The Word is probably the best CD on the market, only ever bettered when Classic Rock release their irregular homage to Prog. However I am a sucker for any secondhand record shop or car boot sale that stock the record company promo comps, often dumped by reps or ungrateful radio jocks.

...have done a few good ones. I have one called 'Maximum '65' which I bought with a magazine in 2000 and misplaced, happily found another copy for 25p in a charity shop. It's a saunter through Immediate and Pye's mod/psych catalogues and is very good indeed. There was a folk one and a CD called 'Heavy Nuggets' they did which looked good too.

1, Rebirth of Cool..The patrick forge series of jazz/hip hop/soul/ stuff...as "fly" as i ever got.
2. Mod Jazz. A more retro version of the same if you swap hip hop for lounge.

I loved both them and sadly my ex wife got custody of these discs.

cant find them in shops or on line for anything but silly money!

aaaahhhhhh(sigh)

'John Barleycorn Reborn: Dark Britannica' (on Cold Spring) is a great collection along the 'strange folk' lines already mentioned.

Covering neo-folk and moving into industrial is the monumental 'Looking for Europe' 4CD boxset (it's about the price of a double CD) which tracks the genre from early stuff like Nico, Scott Walker, Wicker Man soundtrack to more modern artists like Sieben and Tenhi.

I think there are a lot of Joe Meek compilations out but one I love is called 'Vampires, Cowboys, Spacemen and Spooks' - it's entirely instrumentals. Imagine a compilation where everything sounds a bit like 'Telstar', but 'Telstar' is the most normal thing on it...

Finally, if you like heavier stuff, you could try 'Doom Capital' on Crucial Blast records - riff-heavy Sabbath-inspired rock and metal, all from bands around Maryland/Washington DC. Clutch kick the CD off, and if you like them, you'll probably like the rest. Looks like this is going for a song second-hand on Amazon at the moment...

Neither are cheap but worth getting.
Both four discs with about 100 songs on each.

"Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond"

Just like the original Nuggets except all Non-USA.

and

"Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era 1976 to 1995"

Both are excellent although you wouldn't be the first to say the original is the best.

I also love the "Born Bad" series, six discs (only available separately) It's sub-titled "Songs The Cramps Taught Us"

It's basically music for Juvenile Delinquents from the 50's and 60's. In includes comparitively well known songs like "Surfin Bird" by The Trashmen, "Strychnine" by the Sonics, "Lonesome Town" by Ricky Nelson.

It has mostly obscuritites though such as the great version of Heartbreak Hotel by Buddy Love who makes that Hotel sounds like the swingingest place in town.

The most typical song is probably "Quick Joey Small" by "Kasenetz Katz Super Circus" which is musically pure bubblegum pop. Imagine the Archies singing a song about breaking out of jail "The hounds are on your tail" and you've got it. I love them.

If you want to hear a rock version of "Shortnin' Bread" Volume 5 is the place to look.

I've got a list as long as my arm here. I'm going to be sooooo busy - and sooooo skint.

The Sound Gallery and In Flight Entertainment ones were probably the first comp of their type I ever bought. I like forgotten and weird.

The Roots Of Doo Wop

African Scream Contest

The Very Best Of Éthiopiques

Studio One Scorcher Instrumentals

Tighen Up - Trojan Reggae Classics 1968-74

Ghana Soundz

..was the soundtrack to my teenage years. And, amazingly, it didn't have a cheesy cover of a stick of rock or some other confectionery, but a moody shot of The Flock's long-haired violinist in full flight. Other gems within included Chicago, Johnny Winter, Spirit, Tom Rush, Al Stewart, Taj Mahal to name a few.

ZigZag Lipsmackin' 70s Vol 3 - a collection of 70s soft rock curios and the odd hit (the sublime "Pinball" by Brian Prothero). Wonderful.

I paste the blurb below ....
Inspired by the legendary music magazine of the same name, our next volume in the Lipsmackin' 70's series unearths the long, lost singer songwriter gems, the one off minor hits and radio play list favourites, that all deserved much more . These are singles from the early 70's that didn't really fit into any genre being in turns a bit folky, a touch proggy, a tad rocky, a little glammy, some poppy, country'ish - so an all encompassing name soft rock was coined to cover it. The artists are predominantly English, all the recordings were made in England , and that too flavours the compilation . All unique sounds in a time of one off production deals and experimentation with new artists. Some were the first vehicles before stardom (Leo Sayer in Patches , Neil MacArthur was Colin Blunstone, Chris Neil became a hit producer in the 80's, Jimmy Edwards from Guest & Edwards later with Sham 69 and Time Uk), others came from writer producers (Shine is Tony Rivers, Stormy Petrel is John Carter, then Mike Hurst and Mike d'Abo ), also the unclassifiable individuals (Laurie Styvers, John Howard, Clifford T Ward, Howard Werth , Ewan Stephens , Curtiss Maldoon (who later had a song covered by Madonna -Sepheryn into Ray of Light trivia fans !) and those who'd had a taste of the business in the 60's and were forging a new direction (Steve Ellis in Ellis , Lesley Duncan previously a well known backing singer, Tim Rose, Ray Fenwick from the Spencer Davis Group, the Sarstedts featuring brother Peter of Where Do You Got To My Lovely fame) . Our Lipsmackin' series is really starting to take a hold and to further this we have hired a PR Promotion person to work the series. Already tracks from the first volumes are being played by club DJs, live support DJs, being stocked in retro fashion stores, checked out and bought by current artists such as Noel Gallagher and The Datsuns.

Probably shouldn't plug them but eMusic is a fabulous source for rare and obscure music. I get 75 tracks a month for £15, 20p each and that includes really long tracks by Fela Kuti.Have a gander pop pickers.

Should mention that on The Word,s recommendation I got The japanese Popstars album from eMusic. Fantastic, 20p a track. I also recently nabbed The bug, new Hold Steady, Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes and Beck and they've got Roots Manuva on Monday. Bargain.