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Nothing rough about this

30 years as a record store may have built up their name and reputation but the past few years has seen Rough Trade shops being heralded as fine purveyors of compilation albums.

Their double disc genre CD's have provided valuable oversights and starting points and in 2001, their 4CD compilation celebrating their 25th year was much heralded. It does beg the question though, is there justification for another release for their 30th anniversary?

To change that, this collection has been selected by industry icons such as Seymour Stein, Erol Alkan, Thurston Moore, Jeff Barret and Bobby Gillespie, to name but a few. Like all the other compilations, the combination of known favourites and unearthed gems remain but will obviously differ for each listener.

Kicking off, The Modern Lovers 'Pablo Picasso' is an impressive opening and immediately wins this writer's seal of approval. A quirky Velvet Underground-esque intelligent prose from 1976, the track sets the tone for left-field representations from the stores years.

The opening of CD1 covers the left-field punk era rather well, with even Adam and the Ants turning in a performance far removed from their Smash Hits heyday, with 'Xerox' being a New-Wave rattler with such pace and melody that Franz Ferdinand fans would lap it up. And for tracks like this, the compilation proves its worth. Growing up in the 80's, this writer thought David Bowie was dire, songs like 'Let's Dance' and 'China Girl' doing nothing at all but upon stumbling upon his back catalogue, the genius of the man's previous work was rather blatant, and this song by Adam and the Ants falls into the category of "Wow, I never thought he had it in him."

Yes, you can always tell a good compilation record by the amount of additional albums you end up buying because of it and it's likely that yet again, a Rough Trade compilation will leave a hole in the bank account and make some record store owners rather happy.

As the first disc continues, the variety eventually kicks in with songs like 'The Power of Lard' documenting the vibrancy of the late 80s before culminating in the guitar pop classic of The Pixies and 'Here Comes Your Man.' With The Pixies now recognised as genuine classics, their inclusion adds an air of mainstream acceptability to the more challenging material.

CD2 is the far more eclectic of the CD's ranging from lo-fi folk of Karen Dolton to the ten minute plus stomp from Stereolab & Nurse with wound. As the album builds to an electronic edge, notable tracks start creeping in and Schneider TM's cover of The Smiths 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' is a classic cover, doing justice to the original but offering a modern take on it. Similarly, Bjork's 'Where Is The Line' showcases her trademark vocals but places them over a more adventurous backing track than what she is known for, and again, the album proves its worth by allowing a re-evaluation of certain acts and styles.

Much in the way that the compilation began with a track that means a lot, it ends with a bona-fide modern classic. LCD Soundsystem's 'Losing My Edge' not only encapsulates complete excitement with music and lyrics but its name-checking of revered artists fits snugly with Rough Trades style and ethos and is a truly fitting end to the album. If you don't have the time or inclination to check out this album and hunt down a selection, you could do worse than chasing up the artists who James Murphy extols about in 'Losing My Edge', including the Modern Lovers, who opened this very same album.