Cruising the dusty side streets and forgotten alleyways of rock & roll history, there are all kinds of treasures to be found if one takes a left turn away from the accepted canon whenever possible. Case in point, the brilliant collection
Miles Out to Sea: The Roots of British Power Pop 1969-1975, which makes a valiant effort to posit that great pop music didn't just fade away after
the Beatles packed it in. The three discs here are jammed with warbly glam rockers, jangling dreamers, introspective piano pushers, melodic hard rockers, tuneful oddballs, and radio-friendly gumdroppers, all looking for that rousing moment when a cascading melody, plangent vocal, and trilling vocal harmony cuddle up next to a little bit of power -- maybe a flashing guitar riff, a thudding drumbeat, or some booming bass -- and make magic happen. Some of the alchemists here are well-known, like
the Kinks with their moody rocker "This Man He Weeps Tonight,"
the Move with the hyperactive "Chinatown," and
the Who, who teeter on the far edge of the pop-to-power scale on "In a Hand or a Face." Of course,
Badfinger, the band who are the poster children for this whole enterprise, shine with the painfully pretty ballad "Know One Knows." Scattered across the rest of the set are fun surprises, too. Who knew
Slade could write a melancholy melody with the song that gave the collection its name or that
Iain Matthews ("So Sad [No Love of His Own]") went to Ridgemont High with
Jackson Browne?
The best thing about comps like this is discovering acts who were unjustly lost to time, and there are plenty of them here. A short list of winners has to include Shakane's glimmering cover of
Neil Young's "When You Dance I Can Really Love," Liverpool Echo's lovely Merseybeat/folk-rock hybrid "Girl on the Train,"
Neil Harrison's so-
George-it-hurts "Bicycle Driver," and
Stray's ripping rocker "Alright Ma!" Most incredible of the lost gems is Pagliaro's "Some Sing, Some Dance," a song that takes full advantage of the era's anything-goes ethos and comes up with pop music at its most breathtaking. A few names that rate a little high on the familiarity scale do drop by with some gems as well:
Stealers Wheel add some funk to their strum on the delightfully loose "Go as You Please," a pre-prog
Barclay James Harvest turn in the nifty mod groover "Good Love Child," and who in their right mind could resist the sunny delight of
First Class and "Beach Baby"? Or Rocking Horse's "Biggest Gossip in Town"? This is just a partial listing of the treats that await travelers willing to set aside history and do a little off-road exploring, a task made easy by the effort and care put into
Miles Out to Sea by the genius crew of spelunkers who make up the staff at Grapefruit. Long may they dig when the results are as glittering and golden as these. ~ Tim Sendra