VA - '80s British - Gold (2007)

If you're a die-hard Anglophile with a deep love for early-'80s new wave, the odds are pretty good that you already have most of the tracks on Gold: '80s British, a chronologically sequenced two-disc set that doesn't reach Howard Jones -- er, 1985 -- until the latter half of the second disc. And, even though Hip-O reaches out to many labels not distributed by mothership Universal, the set is not definitive -- for starters, there's no Human League, Heaven 17, Art of Noise, or the Smiths. However, a truly definitive compilation of '80s British music would have to extend well beyond a couple discs, so the label really can't be faulted. For anyone who doesn't look upon the decade with short-sighted derision, there's plenty to love, and most of it has held up extraordinarily well.