Including this album in this blog series is almost a cheat. Yes, it is indeed a record label sampler in that all the tracks are from bands that were signed to the label at the time, and it includes all the bands that were signed to the label at that time.
But all the tracks are unique to this compilation (except for one, where we get a (superior) demo version of a tracks already released), so it’s more of a showcase for the label than a regular sampler.
It’s really elaborate — it was done in a variety of formats, and one of them was as a wooden box in an edition of 100.
So… it’s like a fetish object for record collectors.
But! It’s also, indeed, a really, really, really good album in and of itself, and it probably worked well as a promotional tool.
Some of the bands were uncomfortable with the album, since it seemed to focus so much on the label itself and not the artists — in interviews, there were mutterings about how there’s no such thing as a “4AD band”, and they’re all individuals, and etc… While it didn’t seem so at the time, I guess you could see this as the start of the end of what made 4AD 4AD.
02:57 Colourbox - Hot Doggie
05:27 This Mortal Coil - Acid, Bitter and Sad
05:35 The Wolfgang Press - Cut the Tree
04:29 Throwing Muses - Fish
02:58 Dead Can Dance - Frontier
03:17 Cocteau Twins - Crushed
04:49 Dif Juz - No Motion
04:03 Clan of Xymox - Muscoviet Musquito
08:48 Dead Can Dance - The Protagonist
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather (some virus? something?), so I went with this book.
Back in my 20s, I guess I was a Mercedes Lackey fan. I mean, I understood that she wasn’t what you’d call a “good author”, but I found the books to be pretty entertaining. I mean, some of them — others were a bit trying, as Lackey has a tendency to focus on things like packing, unpacking and eating at inns. There was one middle book in a trilogy that was nothing but packing, unpacking and eating at inns, packing, unpacking and eating at inns. The end.
It’s been almost a decade since I last read a Lackey book (or whoever’s writing them these days), and I don’t remember at all whether I liked them any more or not.
Well, she hasn’t changed much. I guess this is aimed more at kids than her earlier books used to be? I think the target audience for this book is 12 years old, and that’s fine by me.
And Lackey still writes page after page about packing for going on a journey, and making bedding, and of course, lots of scenes like the above where they sit down to eat at an inn, and the food is always surprisingly good, even if it’s cheap. It’s soothing.
It only becomes a problem when the plot actually starts, which is after two hundred pages of the above: They finally find the Big Evil Evil, and then just putter around for another hundred pages before doing anything about it, and then the book is over.
It’s a very relaxing read; I liked it fine, and the next time I get a cold, I’m going to read the next book in this series.
However, I have to wonder whether any children are reading these books.
I have no idea — I think I would have really liked his when I was twelve, but that’s a long time ago. Perhaps some kids still like Slow Fantasy? As a way to bow out of a stressful life? The copy I have is a cancelled library book (from Alabama!), and I think I may have been the first person to read this copy, so that’s one data point.
It’s a Mercedes Lackey novel. It was fun while I was reading it, there are telepathic animals and close family love and evil was defeated. At this point, those are my expectations, and they were met.
Looking at the reviewers on Goodreads, the readership doesn’t look very young, exactly.
I was late to the PC Music party, but I’ve got a good excuse: I’m old. But the first time I heard this label sampler (which was in 2020, I think?), my jaw dropped to the floor. How was it possible to cram this much abrasive madness into a pop record?
Because indeed, PC Music was ground zero for hyperpop; pop that was so poppy that when people encountered it, they assumed it was a joke or something. Like this now infamous Pitchfork review:
Charli XCX had been a mainstream pop singer, so she was the PC Music-affiliated artist that “normal” people encountered, and just couldn’t believe what they were being asked to listen to. Understandable, but also hilarious.
Even Charli’s record company thought this was commercial suicide (that’s PC Music boss A. G. Cook on the floor in the background there), and it probably would have been (produced by Cook and SOPHIE). And then eight years later, Charli’s huge with an album that’s not so dissimilar from what they were doing back then.
Anyway, this PC Music label sampler is from 2018, and it works perfectly as an album, and also as a way to make any person over 30 to leave the room (and most of the people under 30, too). It’s fantastic! Every track a pearl, and it has great flow as an album, and it does what a record label sampler is supposed to do: It got me to buy albums from most of the featured acts.
More effective not-that-interested-in-music-person disperser than Merzbow or Government Alpha. Not recommended if you have a headache.
03:32 Hannah Diamond - Every Night
03:48 A. G. Cook - Beautiful
02:24 GFOTY - USA
03:27 Danny L Harle - In My Dreams
04:18 Hannah Diamond - Attachment
02:22 Lipgloss Twins - Wannabe
02:14 Thy Slaughter - Bronze
02:08 A. G. Cook - Keri Baby (feat. Hannah Diamond)
01:51 GFOTY - Don't Wanna: Let's Do It
03:33 Easyfun - Laplander
Of all the oldee tymey things I do, the oldeest tymiest is probably that I buy compilation albums:
I seem to have 982 of them now. I buy them when I see somebody do a themed collection of music that I’m interested in but not that familiar with (say, Belgian Dark Wave), or to if somebody does a compilation that has a couple bands I love (then perhaps the rest will be new, exciting discoveries?), or just because it’s by Soul Jazz Records, because they have good taste.
These days, it would make sense to just seek out playlists instead, but I don’t use Spotify or any other streaming services, so nope.
The most maligned compilation type is the dreaded “Record Label Sampler”. These are designed to give people an impression of what’s going on at a record label at a specific time, and most record labels have their share of awful bands as well as good bands. Usually little care is taken in selection (just the biggest hit from each artist), sequencing or artwork. The thing is just an ephemeral promotional tool, seemingly designed to be thrown away.
But there’s some that transcend that format, and I thought it might be nice to talk about them a bit. So this is going to be an approximately seven part blog series where I feature some record label samplers that I thing are really good.
Good record label samplers are pretty rare. You need to have a record label that’s small and focused enough that the sampler works as an album and doesn’t feel like a random sequence of unrelated tracks, and there aren’t that many of those.
Nerdy rules: These have to be actual record label samplers — that is, not retrospectives done later, and not albums that collect tracks released by other record companies first.
This is a true record label sampler: It has everybody (or virtually everybody) who was working with Crammed Discs at the time, and it’s all tracks that have been released before, and it’s priced to sell. It’s 100% a promotional tool, but since Crammed Disks had an amazing roster at the time, it’s an amazing album.
There’s just something about the sequencing that’s just totally on point. Side one starts stridently with The Honeymoon Killers and ends with the wistfully naive Happy Holiday by Hermine. Then side two picks up with When It’s War by the mysterious People in Control and then just continues with one odd, intriguing track after another, and then ending in a chill dubbed out track by Family Fodder.
I had this album when I was 16, and I played it to death. Most of the albums the tracks were sourced from weren’t available at all for me, so it took me a decade to find them all, and, yes, they were (almost) all fantastic.
So as a promotional tool it worked perfectly (for this consumer, at least), but it’s also just a wonderful album in itself.
03:17 The Honeymoon Killers - Subtitled Remix
03:06 Band Apart - The Lesson
03:30 Minimal Compact - Babylonian Tower
03:51 Nadjam - Kullish Cahared
02:44 Hermine - Happy Holiday
03:20 People in Control - When It's War
06:07 Zazou, Bikaye, CY1 - Dju ya feza
04:16 Des Airs - Lovely Lady of the Roses
02:29 Benjamin Lew, Steven Brown - Dans les jardins
02:52 Family Fodder - The Big Dig
The Honeymoon Killers - Histoire à Suivre / Wait & See
