Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. 30 Seconds Over Tokyo - Pere Ubu
2. Boredom - Buzzcocks
3. Fisherman - The Congos
4. Nag Nag Nag
5. T.V.O.D. - The Normal
6. Suspect Device - Stiff Little Fingers
7. United - Throbbing Gristle
8. Ambition - Subway Sect
9. Part Time Punks - Television Personalities
10. Fairytale in the Supermarket
11. Reality Asylum - Crass
12. Transmission - Joy Division
13. People Say - The Go-Betweens
14. Let's Build a Car - Swell Maps
15. Final Day - Young Marble Giants
16. How I Wrote Elastic Man - The Fall
17. Mr. Clarinet - The Birthday Party

Disc 2:

1. There Goes Concorde Again - ...And the Native Hipsters
2. Sweetest Girl - Scritti Politti
3. Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt
4. Cums Bleed
5. Hand in Glove - The Smiths
6. Sugar Hiccup - Cocteau Twins
7. Krieg in Den Stadten
8. Tupelo - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
9. Road to Nowhere - Talking Heads
10. Death Valley '69 - Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth,
11. Hard Left - Tackhead
12. Jungle - Dub Syndicate, Lee "Scratch" Perry
13. Birthday - The Sugarcubes

Disc 3:

1. Bone Machine - Pixies
2. Touch Me I'm Sick - Mudhoney
3. Revolution - Spacemen 3
4. Different Dru - The Lemonheads
5. Furthur Back and Faster
6. Light That Will Cease to Fail - Stereolab
7. Her Jazz - Huggy Bear
8. Fade Into You - Mazzy Star
9. Song to the Siren - The Chemical Brothers
10. Pink Frost - The Chills
11. Soaky in the Pooper - Lambchop
12. Sciew Spic - Gescom
13. Plastique [Video Mix] - Plastikman
14. Gak 4

Disc 4:

1. 6 A.M. Jullandar Shere - Cornershop
2. Presha III - Studio Pressure
3. Everything You Do Is a Balloon - Boards of Canada
4. Flashlegs (Suite) - Echoboy
5. As the Rain [Adrian Sherwood on-U Sound Remix] - Jeb Loy Nichols
6. Monkey on Your Back - Clinic
7. Hot Topic - Le Tigre
8. To You - I Am Kloot
9. In the Bath - Lemon Jelly
10. Fuck the Pain Away - Peaches
11. My Winding Wheel - Ryan Adams
12. Talk to Me [91 Version] - Tindersticks

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #560543 in Music
• Released on: 2001-04-10
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Limited Edition

Album Description
Budget-priced four disc box released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Rough Trade shop in London. A joint release from two of England's biggest & best indie labels ever, Rough Trade and Mute, it contains 56 tracks from all of the top acts signed to these two or that have recorded for them, including The Smiths, Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Chemical Brothers, Mazzy Star, Stereolab, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Mudhoney, Lemonheads, The Sugarcubes, Pere Ubu, Cabaret Voltaire, Spacemen 3, Scritti Politti, Einsturzende Neubaten, The Fall, The Go-Betweens, The Birthday Party, Crass, Stiff Little Fingers, Coil, The Chills and dozens more!

Amazon.com
The very idea of a "Greatest Hits" of Rough Trade (the store, not the label)--the very indiest of all of London's independent record shops--should have seemed, in theory, about as risible as the compiling of a Led Zeppelin singles collection. In practice, though, this anniversary compilation is nigh on essential. After 25 years of catering to London's most clued-up punters, Rough Trade has achieved a respectable legacy of eclecticism; while other lesser independent record shops have tended more toward the traditional, guitar-led music that's come to epitomize modern indie, this compilation offers a laudably impressive scope, collecting together a number of the chain's most popular sellers and sequencing them in a loosely chronological order. It certainly throws up some interesting juxtapositions: the caustic riot grrrl of Huggy Bear's "Her Jazz" rubbing up against futuristic avant-pop of Stereolab's "The Light That Will Cease to Fail"; the super-political anarcho-punk of Crass's "Reality Asylum" mere moments from the twee jangle pop of the Raincoats' "Fairytale in the Supermarket"; or the cobwebbed dub of Lee "Scratch" Perry's "Jungle" that's a massive cultural leap from the loopy Icelandic pop explosion of the Sugarcubes' "Birthday." Taking risks, but seldom putting a foot wrong--really, it doesn't matter if you've ever browsed the rack of Rough Trade, as this compilation is as good an alternative pop encyclopedia as you're likely to find. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Sounds from the streets .
Rough Trade is a legendary independant record shop based in London that has always been able to supply the clued up record collector with the latest cutting edge singles .

The cultural significence of this shop is immense as it has always fanned the flames for new musical directions whether this was punk , or cool Jamaican roots reggae in the seventies , or the cutting edge sounds of today .

This 4 cd box set has been released to celebrate 25 years of Rough Trade shops and it certainly does the company justice . Unknown artists sit side by side with musical legends like Pere Ubu , Joy Division , a young Bjork , The Pixies , Lee "Scrath" Perry , and The Smiths ( whose legendary legacy was released on the Rough Trade record label ) . The only thing that links the eclectic music on this collection ( apart from the quality ) is that all the songs were recorded by musical mavericks who were keen to push the sonic envelope back . If you want to hear four hours of exciting , groundbreaking music at a criminally cheap price . START HERE!

a good starting point
Obviously with a compilation that covers so many musical epochs and genres there is going to be a lot of material you don't like. Indeed there are quite a few of the 56 songs here that I just don't care for, but there are just as many songs on here that I love that have introduced me to some artists that I mightn't have otherwise heard: Spacemen 3, Pere Ubu, Cabaret Voltaire, The Chills etc; this 4 disc set is like meeting someone with a great punk and indie record collection and having them play a whole bunch of stuff for you. Some of it you might have heard before, but there'll always be some songs that passed you by that you'll want to own. Don't be put off by the price either, for four discs of such classic music it's well worth the admission fee.

Now that's what I call eclectic!
This is interesting - I think it must represent what Rough Trade had on their shelves at some time in the last 25 years (Has it been that long?) An interesting selection, though by know means a great one. Worth the cost of entry is 'Final Day' by Young Marble Giants, which I hadn't heard in 19 years (and it's still splendid)and the Television Personalities 'Part time Punks', neither of which, I'm almost certain, ever appeared on CD before. At the other end of the scale, Einsturzende Neubaten sound characteristically like a group of drunks trying to get home from the pub through a scrapyard, and the female lead of ...And The Native Hipsters has the most annoying voice of any human being in history. (I feel like sueing the group for the four minutes of my life that they claimed from me). For the rest, although there's a lot of filler in there, there should be something that everyone will like. Good luck, Rough Trade, I hope I'm around for the 50th Anniversary compilation. It's just a big pity you had to put the Native Hipsters on there.