Unlike the previous volumes in Jon Savage’s series of double CD compilations, which featured music from an expansive mixture of genres, this latest edition is 100% rock, as Jon elaborates in the customary bumper 28-page booklet:
“In the late 60s, British pop and youth culture began to fragment into tribes. The divisions had always been there, even at the height of the supposedly classless mid-60s. I was an unrepentant rock fan. That was my tribe. I still bought Motown and reggae hits, but they were the hits: there was no deeper exploration. After Radio Caroline had gone, I’d lost most of the connection to black American music as part of the wider pop experience that I’d had in 1965, 1966 and 1967, even 1968. Thus streamed, I hunted the bins all over London for singles on Island, Elektra and Track.”
“Rock in the US and the UK encompassed male braggadocio, anguished reflection, sincere if not naive protest, stonking riffs and loud, distorted guitars. Much of it was blues-based, particularly in 1969 as the back-to-the-roots impulse of 1968 worked its way through the sharp end of rock, but a year or so later some of it became wilder, stranger and even more basic – looking forward to what a truly 1970s white teenage music could be: that groundswell that eventually burst out in mid-decade onwards.”
“There was no real name for this period but, just before glam, it was an era of massive riffs, overloading guitars, mindless yet heartfelt protest, goblin chants and a general mood of questioning, exploration and disillusion. While many songs from this period have become generational clichés, it is hoped that this collection will help you in hearing them afresh. They were new once, like we all were.”