Friday music

As part of my Christmas present, I bought myself Children Of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The Second Psychedelic Era 1976-1995, a 4 CD collection from Rhino Records, a sort of sequel to the Lenny Kaye's seminal Nuggets, which celebrated the "garage rock" of the 60s. This massive set includes songs from The Cramps, The Smithereens, The Chills, Julian Cope, etc. It's a real impressive package - four very pretty CDs, along with a 50 page or so full color booklet, describing each song, the genre, etc.

But I have to admit, so far I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping for more "power pop", but these songs don't really seem to have the hooks that reach out and grab me. So far, most of the songs I like from the CDs are songs I already have, or are by artists I already know. I haven't yet run into a song that made me stop what I was doing and investigate further, which surprises me. After reading the booklet, I thought there'd be lots of lost treasures (or "nuggets", shall we say), but they haven't surfaced yet. Here's some notes on the CDs so far.

CD#3 :
 "Unguarded Moment" - The Church : Great Aussie band, I have this CD,
    their debut album Of Skins and Heart.
 "Sunspots" - Julian Cope : He sounds like The Stranglers!
 "Hindu Gods Of Love" - Lipstick Killers : My favorite "driving guitars"
   song on this set so far.
 "Pink Frost" - The Chills : I own Soft Bomb, but this
   is a pretty solid song too.

CD#4 :
 "Like Wow - Wipeout!" - The HooDoo Gurus : A favorite Aussie band of mine
   from the 80s
 "Getting Out Of Hand" - Bangs (good early Bangles song)
 "You're My Loving Way" - The Aardvarks (minimal surf pop, practically)
 "Cheated and Lied" - The Vipers : Interesting, old sounding pop songs.

You can read an excellent full review on this big set here on AllMusic.com.