Various Artists - All Things Bright And Beautiful

Fakta A four-hour, 3CD anthology of the late 60s British pop scene during the early years of Radio 1. Big hits and intriguing misses from some of the biggest acts and most prominent writing/ production teams of the era. In 1967, British pop radio underwent a seismic change when the pirate stations that had ruled the airwaves over the previous couple of years were declared illegal by an Act of Parliament and replaced by a national station controlled by publicly-funded broadcaster the BBC. The arrival of Radio 1 saw the British pop scene remade in the station's own image, with a new wave of songwriting and production teams competing to create bright, brassy, relentlessly upbeat tracks that would be embraced by Radio 1's all-important playlist. While The Love Affair, The Herd, The Tremeloes and The Foundations were among the groups who made the headlines, the key figures were really the backroom auteurs: names like Tony Macaulay, Howard Blaikley and arranger Keith Mansfield were all integral to the new, homogenised pop radio sound. 'All Things Bright And Beautiful: The UK Pop Explosion' is a 3CD, four-hour celebration of this pivotal period in British pop history, with a huge number of key hits - including several featured in the opening hour of Radio 1's first broadcast - joined by more minor successes and some 45s that received considerable airplay but nevertheless failed to make the grade. Housed in Grapefruit's standard clamshell box packaging with a 48-page booklet and track- by-track annotation, it's another essential purchase for any late 60s pop aficionado.