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| The Brit Box: U.K. Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millennium | 
 enlarge | Artist: Various Artists
Label: Rhino / Wea
Category: Music
List Price: $64.98
Buy New: $35.93
You Save: $29.05 (45%)
New (36) Used (17) from $33.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 55104
Format: Special Edition
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 12.3 x 6.1 x 1.4
MPN: 159804
UPC: 081227998356
EAN: 0081227998356
ASIN: B000TXNBDG
Release Date: November 20, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Excellent collection in 4 discs
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | How Soon Is Now? - Morrissey | | • | Lorelei - Cocteau Twins | | • | Primitive Painters - Hayward, Lawrence | | • | Somewhere in China - Shop Assistants | | • | My Biggest Thrill - Linehan, Tony | | • | Just Like Heaven - Smith, Robert [1] | | • | Lips Like Sugar - Sergeant, Will | | • | April Skies - Reid, Jim | | • | Walkin' with Jesus (Sound of Confusion) - Kember, Pete | | • | Crash - Court, P.J. | | • | Unbearable - Wonder Stuff | | • | She Bangs the Drums - Brown, Ian | | • | The Only One I Know - Baker, Jonathan | | • | Step On - Demetriou, Christos | | • | Loaded - Gillespie, Bobby | | • | This Is How It Feels - Inspiral Carpets | | • | Obscurity Knocks - Trash Can Sinatras | | • | There She Goes - Mavers, Lee | | • | Here's Where the Story Ends - Gavurin, David |
Disc 2
| • | Vapour Trail - Ride | | • | Sight of You - Pale Saints | | • | Only Shallow - Butcher, Bilinda | | • | For Love - Berenyi, Miki | | • | Flying - Lawrie, Stephen | | • | Pearl - Sherriff, Andrew | | • | I Want to Touch You - Dickinson, Rob | | • | Trip & Slide - Carson, Salli | | • | Coast Is Clear - Garcia, Dean | | • | You - Bassett, Paul | | • | This River Will Never Run Dry - McKillop, Kevin | | • | (Thought I'd Died) And Gone to Heaven - Family Cat | | • | (Don't Cut Me Down) Mary Quant in Blue - Curtis, Andrew | | • | 0-0 A.E.T. (No Score After Extra Time) - Thousand Yard Stare | | • | Grey Cell Green - Ned's Atomic Dustbi | | • | Shoot You Down - Vincent, Robert | | • | Stay Beautiful - Bradfield, James De | | • | Star Sign - Love, Gerard |
Disc 3
| • | Metal Mickey - Anderson, Brett | | • | Duel - Swervedriver | | • | Breakfast - Kelly, Eugene | | • | Barfly - McAlinden, Joseph | | • | Regret - Gilbert, Gillian | | • | Laid - James | | • | Kite - Heyward, Nick | | • | Lazarus - Carr, Martin | | • | You're in a Bad Way - Stanley, Bob | | • | Wow & Flutter - Gane, Tim | | • | Tracy Jacks - Albarn, Damon | | • | Live Forever - Gallagher, Noel | | • | Common People - Banks, Nicholas | | • | Speeed King - Hewings, Julian | | • | Wallflower - Wiz | | • | Insomniac - Johannson, Glenn | | • | Sleep Well Tonight - James, Matt | | • | Sleeping In - Dean, Johnny | | • | Alright - Supergrass | | • | Alright - Power, John | | • | Stutter - Frischmann, Justine |
Disc 4
| • | In a Room - Clark, Nigel | | • | Girl from Mars - Wheeler, Tim | | • | Sale of the Century - Wener, Louise | | • | Sleep - Harding, Jaimie | | • | Tattva - Mills, Crispian | | • | The Riverboat Song - Ocean Colour Scene | | • | You're Gorgeous - Jones, Stephen | | • | Slight Return - Morriss, Mark | | • | Something 4 the Weekend - Super Furry Animals | | • | Something for the Weekend - Hannon, Neil | | • | Brimful of Asha - Singh, Tjinder | | • | Service - Broad, James | | • | Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space - Spaceman, J. | | • | Wide Open Space - Draper, Paul | | • | Step into My World - Bell, Andy | | • | Lucky Man - Ashcroft, Richard | | • | Untouchable - Eliot, Louis | | • | Mulder and Scully - Matthews, Cerys | | • | You Don't Care About Us - Molko, Brian | | • | Oh Jim - Crowe, Nicholas |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Consider this super-cool, long-overdue 4-CD set the less-commercial but no-less telling riposte to the early 1960s British Invasion, when bands crossed the Atlantic to serve up what they'd learned, largely from under-heralded American artists (as in the Stones and Muddy Waters). During the period that The Brit Box puts under the microscope, England went from Margaret Thatcher and John Major to Tony Blair, from youth culture (and the press) zeroing in on football hooliganism to the rise of Acid House and Brit pop. So it is that the addled guitar haze of Spaceman 3's "Walkin' with Jesus" melds with the bouncy, synth-softened euphoria of "She Bangs the Drums," and the chirpy, jangly float of The Primitives' "Crash." These are moments in pop transition, as the peppy new wave of the 1980s meets up with the psychedelic, dope-colored moodiness of the '90s, and then, quickly, with the ascent of "Cool Brittania." As the Thatcher/Major era heads into the 1990s, Birdland--long forgotten--rips at the jugular with the quick, garage rock-infused "Shoot You Down," which, like so much here, keeps a finger keenly on a groove you could either embrace while hallucinating or pogo-ing on the dance floor (or both). New Order, Pulp, Oasis, Blur, Elastica, and My Bloody Valentine are all here, of course. They embrace the whole continuum, from the trippy to the happy to the… self-reflective, and they offer enough landmarks that Dodgy, and The Bluetones, and Silver Sun and These Animal Men all have space to drop in, adding layers to this spectacular omnibus collection. --Andrew Bartlett
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Great collection, mixes the familiar and the almost-forgotten January 14, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
This box got lukewarm reviews from the UK press, perhaps trying to protect their own turf in reaction to a US label releasing a definitive UK collection. They're wrong. The Brit Box is a great set of a lot of the best music to come from the British Isles from the mid 80's to the late 90's. Most of the standard-bearers are here - Smiths, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Stone Roses, Suede - plus some people who made some inroads in the States but kind of faded away (Kula Shaker, Elastica, Cornershop) and then some great tracks from bands who got lost in the trans-oceanic translation like Dodgy, Gene, Silver Sun, etc, that round out the collection nicely.
But as is always the case with thematic box sets, one can have some fun debating the roster or even track selections (great to hear the Shop Assistants again, but why not the brilliant A-side of that 45, "Safety Net?"). The liner notes bemoan the fact that the UK went from the Sex Pistols to Spandau Ballet within 4 years, and these bands are supposed to be the backlash against that. Then why include the Cure and Echo and the Bunnymen, whose debuts predated the miserable early 80's UK dancepop/exotic video/fashion bands? New Order, for all of their stellar pedigree, are a strange choice in a way...by the time their fellow Mancunians were inventing Brit Pop, they were kind of into their Ibiza electronica period. And Nick Heyward?
Why no Fall, Muse, Pastels, Woodentops, Yeah Yeah Noh, Nightingales, Marc Riley and the Creepers, Microdisney, Half Man Half Biscuit, Biff Bang Pow, Fuzzbox, Pop Will Eat Itself...and especially (let's hope it was just a licensing problem), why no Radiohead?
But I admit that's all nitpicking. Burn your own 5th disk if you want. Fans of indie rock and Brit Pop will love this, and younger listeners into the Arctic Monkeys, Babyshambles, the Fratellis, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, the Kooks, etc, will enjoy hearing where their generation's music came from too. This is one of the best box sets I've heard in a long time, I'd give it 4 and a half stars if half-stars were in the ratings key.
Incomplete survey November 20, 2007
5 out of 43 found this review helpful
Tis a shame that a millennium-spanning music collection doesn't include such Britpop classics as "Sumer is icumen in" and "Greensleeves", to name but two. True indie songs, they avoided the major labels for most of that period, and stayed high on the oral-trad charts.
 Great for anglophiles/indie-shoegazers-brit pop lovers!! November 29, 2007
5 out of 12 found this review helpful
I bought this from Amazon, and it came quickly. The price was lower,tho... maybe I got a sale? anywho...I am an anglophile and I enjoy indie, shoegazer, and britpop music. There is a booklet with lots of pics and info on the songs, etc...and the box comes with these little battery powered lights that blink on the Brit Box sign! I was totally into it. Pics of kitschy Brit stuff, like baked beans, and tea bags, and the like. The music is great. 4 discs with around 80 tracks. i had no probs with playing any tracks, either. i have no regrets. look, you have the track listing above, so you know what songs are included, and the booklet is extensive...i think it is a good deal all around.
Not bad and a bit underrated December 28, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The Brit Box has taken a beating from music critcs who have derided it for not being representative enough of the British indie scene, not including enough of the right songs, and not including some defining artists of the scene. I'm not here to do that. Instaed, I'll focus on the music that is on the box. So let's break this bad boy down one disc at a time.
DISC 1:
A lot of good stuff here. This disc includes the classic Smiths song "How Soon Is Now," plus classics from the Stone Roses, The Cure, The La's, The Charlatans, Happy Mondays, and Echo & The Bunnymen. The Primitives' "Crash" was a great find for me, and "April Skies" may be the Jesus & Mary Chain's best song. I'm not big on Inspiral Carpets, but that's just nit-picking.
DISC 2:
Also pretty good. Aside from Ride, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub being represented with some of their best stuff, I found some great tracks in Catherine Wheel's "I Want To Touch You," and Curve's "Coast Is Clear." "Shoot You Down" by Birdland is classic, as is "Trip & Slide" by Bleach. I don't like Thousand Yard Stare, but it wasn't enough to ruin the disc for me.
DISC 3:
Not as strong as the first two discs, but still worth hearing. Disc 3 is front-loaded with great tracks by Suede, Swervedriver, New Order, James and Superstar. Then it hits a bit of a dry spell, even though great tracks by Oasis and Pulp (plus "Speeed King" by These Animal Men) are in the middle. The disc has Supergrass and Menswear towards the end, and it closes with a rampaging "Stutter" by Elastica. Overall, I have few complaints here, except that I can think of four or five other tracks off Parklife that I would have chosen besides "Tracy Jacks."
DISC 4:
This is where it starts to come apart. The Britpop scene was changing, and not as much great music was being made in that style. Personally, I think the box set's producers should have limited this set from 1984-1996 instead of taking it through to 1999. There was plenty of great music made during that time to fill 4 discs.
Anyway, about the music on disc 4: There are good songs on here, and they're mostly saddled at the beginning. Ash's "Girl From Mars" is great, and so is Sleeper and Kula Shaker. However, this disc drags after track 6, with very little to pick it up. Silver Sun's "Service" is good, and there are superb tracks by Mansun and The Verve. "Oh Jim" isn't a bad closer. Yet after the high level of quality throughout discs 1-3, the last disc is a bit of a letdown.
I won't do much complaining about what isn't on here. Apparently, the producers of this set weren't able to license Slowdive. Apart from that, I think the biggest omission is Depeche Mode; some Violator-era tracks would have fit in nicely on this set.
Yes, the Brit Box could have been better. But it's not as terrible as the music press has made it out to be.
The Brit Box- makes a great gift for the New Wave Enthusiast! December 27, 2007
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
My husband had added The Brit Box to his Amazon wish list. I ordered it for him, obtaining free shipping. Once it arrived, I checked out the lighted feature and it was very cool. I wrapped it and awaited Christmas evening. When he opened it, he was very excited to have several of the rare songs on CD. Then I flipped the switch for the light-up feature, an added bonus. We have never seen anything like it. This was a great and successful gift at a really good price. Thank you!
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