VA - Martin Green Presents: Super Sonics - 40 Junkshop Britpop Greats [2CD Set] (2020)

Two CD set. 2020 collection. Super Sonics is a celebration of the multi-faceted British alt. Rock/pop scene which flourished 1992-1998, midway through attracting the term Brit Pop. Compiled by DJ, curator and contemporary scenester Martin Green, who ran the London club Smashing during the period. The scene was a fusion. Grunge was out Glam was in. 70's charity shop tops, jeans went skinny, fringes floppy and sportswear vintage donned. Soundtracks, TV themes, Moog grooves, Punk, Indie, Hi Nrg, Glam and New Wave hit the decks. Different aspects of 20th Century musical culture collided to create something new. Super Sonics is a slice of 'single' heaven from across the range of musical styles which sprouted. Such styles were referred to as the New Wave Of New Wave, The Scene That Celebrates Itself and more until Brit Pop was coined to cover it all. This collection includes tracks by Powder, Linoleum, Mantaray, Huggy Bear, Duffy, Pram, Spearmint, Rialto, and many others.

Within his liner notes for his 2020 collection Martin Green Presents Super Sonics: 40 Junkshop Britpop Greats, Green says Lush guitarist Phil King coined the term "Junkshop Britpop" to cover "the genre's forgotten B-sides, promo CD singles, and limited-edition coloured vinyl 45s." It's no coincidence that "junkshop" is a term that's also been applied to neglected recordings from the glam and glitter era: its use here suggests that Super Sonics: 40 Junkshop Britpop Greats will be filled with the same kind of trashy pop discoveries, only taken from the swinging 1990s, when the U.K. was so happening it was dubbed "Cool Britannia" by certain wags of the '90s. The exploitation industry was considerably different in that decade than it was in the 1970s, so the analogy doesn't quite scan -- there aren't quite as many crass cash-ins among these 40 tracks as there are on any junkshop glitter comp you can find -- but Super Sonics does manage to conjure the heady times of 1993-1997, when every sound that flitted through the U.K. charts could be conceivably called Britpop. Case in point: the great synth rock trio Add N to (X) are here with "Inevitable Fast Access," a dense, paranoid cut that has little to do with the big guitars and big hooks that run rampant through the rest of the set, but for a brief time, such futuristic sounds were gobbled up by the Britpop monster. While most of the rest of Super Sonics does sound a bit like Britpop as defined by Blur, that London combo isn't included -- instead, Duffy's "London Girls" is. A few of the names would be familiar to anybody who perused the music weeklies in the '90s -- Powder, Kenickie, Shampoo, Menswear, and Rialto are all here, but maybe not with the song you're expecting -- however, the pleasure of Super Sonics is discovering also-rans who barely registered on the cultural radar. While many of these aren't very good -- the delightfully named Sexton Ming and Steady attempted trip-hop and failed -- they are charming and help make this comp into a gaudy, endearing time capsule.