BJÖRK
Greatest Hits/Family Tree
(One Little Indian)

TEN YEARS ago, Björk sounded like an evolutionary shift in pop — a new musical species. Like David Bowie in the Seventies, she possessed the glamour and charisma to import bold new ideas into the mainstream from the avant-garde fringes of folk and dance music, art and fashion, nature and landscape. Armed with the most powerful and distinctive pop voice of the past 20 years, she proceeded to inspire everyone from Radiohead to Coldplay to Madonna. Oh yes — just try playing Big Time Sensuality next to Ray of Light.

Marking her tenth year as a solo artist, the Icelandic diva now professes embarrassment at 1993’s Debut. But her 15-track hits retrospective, compiled from fan votes on her website, is dominated by early tracks that still sound exhilaratingly fresh. From the playground skips and Woody Woodpecker hiccups of Venus as a Boy to the fractured jazz wonderment of Possibly Maybe, there is a playful simplicity and flirtatious curiosity here which diminished with the self-conscious polish of subsequent albums. There is fierce beauty in the later tracks, too: the bubbling geyser of orchestral passion that is Bachelorette, the Enya-with-fangs romanticism of Pagan Poetry and a sultry new electro-ethnic ballad entitled It’s in Our Hands.

A fuller and deeper story is told by Family Tree, a six-disc archive of wildly diverse recordings. The pre-solo material featured includes a flinty blueprint for the breakthrough Sugarcubes single, Birthday, as well as an engaging sprinkle of lusty Celtic-tinged folk-pop. Other highlights are four early flirtations with electronic rhythm, a mixed bag of Druid house, offbeat trip-hop and the transformation of the old favourites Play Dead and Anchor Song into gorgeous sci-fi lullabies.

Her increasingly mannered whoops may sound less explosively vital nowadays, but the musical saga plotted here is a powerful reminder of Björk’s stunning versatility and blazing creative ambition. Here’s to an equally magical second decade. Stephen Dalton (Rating: 5/5)

CULTURE CLUB
Box Set
(Virgin)

THE SOULFUL, often heartbreaking, pop of Culture Club and the cheerful flamboyance of their frontman are well represented by these four CDs, set inside a hardback book that is packed with piquant quotes. Here are (remastered) smash hits such as Karma Chameleon, early demo versions of several others, numerous previously unreleased tracks, remixes and covers, with Suffragette City and These Boots are Made for Walking most notable among them. Much is superfluous to all but the most obsessive fan, but this is a fitting tribute to one of the most engaging pop bands of the Eighties. Sharon O’Connell (Rating: 3/5)

NEW ORDER
Retro
(London)

IT IS hard to imagine any dedicated fan who wouldn’t already own most of this iconic band’s 20-odd year recording output, but such is the nature of the retrospective. Here — together with a 72-page booklet featuring liner notes by the band and rare photos — are four CDs, compiled by the journalists Miranda Sawyer and John McCready, the DJ Mike Pickering and Bobby Gillespie. They represent the hits, the early years, remixes and live recordings respectively, thus catering to pure pop fans (Blue Monday, Confusion et al) and completists (with a live version of Ceremony from Studio 54 in Barcelona in 1984) alike. SO’C (Rating: 4/5)

XTC
A Coat of Many Cupboards
(Virgin)

JUST THE way that a box set should be, XTC’s four-CD effort is brimming with alternative — but still pleasurable — versions of their greatest hits (Generals & Majors, Making Plans for Nigel) and bits. Forty-one (out of 60) tracks have been taken from the demo/rehearsal (and live) cupboards, plumbed from the 1978-89 period that delivered their first ten albums. It is a good way to unwrap numerous layers of a band (Swindon’s finest to boot) which exemplified idiosyncratic, erudite New Wave pop, and progressed to a folkier, but no less involving, sound. A rich testament to one of British pop’s most endearing bands. Martin Aston(Rating: 3/5)

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Sun Records: 50 Golden Years 1952-2002
(Sanctuary)

MUSICOLOGISTS CAN debate the date of birth of rock’n’roll, but 1952, when Sam Phillips started the Sun label, is as good a place as any to begin. It was another two years before he recorded Elvis Presley, but by then he had already launched Junior Parker and Howlin’ Wolf. After Elvis came Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison. They are all here, alongside lesser lights such as Warren Smith and Sonny Burgess, spread over eight CDs with 198 tracks from a decade when Sun was indisputably the best label in the world. Guaranteed good rockin’, tonight and ever more. Nigel Williamson (Rating: 5/5)

DEEP PURPLE
Listen Learn Read On
(EMI)

DEEP PURPLE have never enjoyed the critical rehabilitation conferred on Led Zeppelin, nor been labelled “influential” like Black Sabbath. For the third member of the hard rock triumvirate that ruled the world in the early Seventies, this is rough justice. In a fair and just society, this six-CD box set, including more than 70 tracks and seven and a half hours of music, would go some way to correcting that. Sadly, though, it probably won’t. The triumph here is not just the magnificent presentation, but also an ingenious selection of material that allows familiar classics to sit comfortably alongside hidden treasures. Richard Whitehead (Rating: 4/5)

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