Spanning 55 years and 45 songs, a 2CD collection to ratify Manchester’s claim to be Britain’s second – if not at times, first – musical city. From primal beat through promiscuous punk, high 80s disco/soul and pure baggy to proud and proper rock, the evidence is all here.

The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Hollies, the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Searchers were at the forefront of the "invasion".

The Early Tapes of The Beatles is the first digital repackaging of The Beatles' First, the 1964 German compilation album of Tony Sheridan and The Beatles recordings. The songs were recorded in Hamburg between 1961 and 1963. Most of the tracks feature vocals by Sheridan. Only tracks 1-5, 7, 10, and 11 actually feature the Beatles, with John Lennon singing lead on "Ain't She Sweet" and featuring "Cry for a Shadow", an instrumental written and performed by the British group alone. The other songs are performed by Sheridan and other musicians, identified as "The Beat Brothers". This CD, which was released in 1984, includes two additional tracks and an extended version of "Ya Ya" and was reissued in 2004 with a different design on Universal Music's Spectrum label. The song "Take Out Some Insurance on Me, Baby" was originally mistitled "If You Love Me, Baby" on all versions until 1970 when in the US, it's proper title was used.

Regardless of who came up with the term "freakbeat" - either Bam Caruso czar Phil Smee created it in the mid-'80s or Richard Allen came up with it as the name for his psych fanzine - it's generally agreed that the Smoke were one of the best examples of the style (along with the Birds, the Creation, Les Fleur de Lys, and a few others) during the "swinging London" era of the mid-'60s. This 23-track comp of feedback-rich primeval psych-beat is highlighted by their finest moment right up front: "My Friend Jack" hit the U.K. Top 50 in 1967, despite the fact that it was banned by the BBC. (According to the excellent liner notes, the Beeb banned the song after the Bishop of Southwark - who misconstrued it as a celebration of drug abuse - contacted EMI head Sir Joseph Lockwood to complain about the song right in the midst of hysteria over a then-recent Rolling Stones drug bust, LSD, and "moral decline")…

Talk about playing from strength: Chip, Dave, Alan and Rick (and its slightly later U.S. counterpart, Suddenly You Love Me) was the second full LP of 1967 by the re-organized Tremeloes, and it doesn't have a weak moment on it. To the band, it must've seemed like nothing less than a miracle twice over, coming as it did the same year that they roared to the top of the U.K. charts (as well as scaling the American Top 20). For the rest of us, however, it was more like a triple miracle, musically speaking. Anyone who missed the optimism, lyricism, and soul stylings of albums like the Beatles' Rubber Soul (and the more accessible parts of Revolver), need look no further than the 13 songs on this long-player to recapture those vibrations…

The definitive Roulettes collection, 22 songs covering the group's entire recorded history, with more highlights than one would expect to find. "Bad Time," "I'll Remember Tonight" (which is more familiar to Americans in its cover version by the Mugwumps), "Stubborn Kind of Fellow," and "I Hope He Breaks Your Heart" are priceless, and most of the rest isn't far behind. The sound is excellent, and the notes are entertaining and wonderfully detailed.