"I was looking for a job, and then I found a job. And heaven knows I'm miserable now." – The Smiths
Some days -- especially the moody, drizzly days of late fall -- are made for the maudlin musings of Morrissey et al., or the Divine Comedy's cheeky disaffection, and there's all this and much more, from the Happy Mondays to Placebo, in the just-released Brit Box: U.K. Indie, Shoegaze, and Brit-Pop Gems of the Last Millennium.
Rhino Records brought together 78 U.K. performers spanning the last 15 years of the 20th century. It's full of key recordings from bands who've exported nicely to this side of the pond and plenty of others (like the Shop Assistants or Spacemen 3) that are lesser-knowns in the U.S. but helped shape the sound of Brit-pop as we know it.
And the whole thing -- four discs of music, tons of photos, an 80-page booklet of notes and ephemera -- comes packed into a box shaped like an English phone booth, complete with battery-powered flickering light bulb.
written on Monday Dec 3, 2007
shoegazing, british-style.
