The Move - Anthology 1966-1972, 4 disc boxset, VGC

	£		35
	$		46

4 CD box set

More than 40 years in the making. 62 career-spanning tracks and well over three hours of Move magnificence on one superbly remastered 4-CD box set! Classic hit singles, b-sides, choice album cuts, a wealth of previously unreleased material including never-before-heard songs, demos, alternate takes & live recordings from 1966-72. The full-colour 72-page booklet with rare & unseen photos & memorabilia includes extensive 10,000-word Move history & band interviews with complete track-by-track info & UK discography. The story of The Move is as mad, bad and dangerous as any rock n roll tale gets. The cast includes four loutish hot-heads, one shy songwriter, and a scheming, Mexican tached manager. And let s not forget one furious British Prime Minister. Travelling with the band in the back of the van is one nasty looking axe and a case of smoke bombs. Chasing them out of the nation s clubs and ballrooms is a queue of fist-waving venue managers demanding explanations for the crowd disturbances and splintered stages. That s hardly the start of it. There s a quite brilliant procession of singles that helped create a second golden age of British pop. Secret service agents loitering menacingly in the shadows. Acid-induced breakdowns. Boozy blackouts. A High Court appearance decked out in granny perms, floral jackets and dark glasses. Probably the most notorious and costly postcard ever produced. High jinx with Jimi Hendrix. Endless rows, punch-ups and changes in personnel. And, quite possibly, the most protracted split in pop history. On a happier note, The Move s work has never been so highly regarded, and this latest, career-crunching 4-CD collection, the sovereign set in Salvo/Fly s programme of 40th anniversary releases, presents the band in various hues. From Who-influenced mod mavericks to beat group harmony specialists, flower power opportunists to power pop sophisticates, and psychedelic jamming band to progressive and hard rock pioneers, The Move are revealed here as a defining example of late 60s /early 70s pop era eclectics.

? Review

Anyone who ever wondered whether the flower punk sounds of Brum beat's finest exponents: The Move, are really worth investing in - other than the plentiful (and cheap) hits collections - has been spoiled for choice in recent years. With all of their albums remastered and reissued and the aforementioned collections allowing the dilettantish listener to experience the joys of their rough 'n' ready psych it now just remains for Anthology to really set the seal on their place in pop history.

This lovingly prepared box set gives the afficianado an alternate history of the band's progress from former mods-turned-commercial benefactors of the Summer of Love. It guides us through their jousts with power pop, metal, pastiche rock 'n' roll and onto proto-classical fusionism (when Jeff Lynne joined ship and steered Roy Wood and drummer Bev Bevan towards the grander designs of the Electric Light Orchestra).

The singles are all present and correct, albeit often in different guises, mixes or demo form. From crude r&b to pop transcendence, it's all here.

Notorious for their op-art, auto-destructive shows, for the first time we hear how explosive these shows were. One disc features an entire show from London's Marquee Club in 1968 which more than makes up for any sonic roughness with sheer untramelled exuberance as Jerry Lee Lewis' It'll Be Me sees them rip the club to shreds.

With further live cuts culled from their (failed) attempts to break a US market in the grip of its own psychedelic revolution, the set moves on to the years when, stripped of founder members, the band limped on (thanks to Jeff Lynne's influence) to morph into ELO. The material from the band's final album, Message From The Country is all uniformly splendid, showing just how much Roy wood had learned in a mere three years of stardom.

Anthology is a fan's dream, though the rest of you may just want to stick to hits. --Chris Jones