DRASTIC PLASTIC: NME (1985)

1. My Ever Changing Moods (Live) - The Style Council

Exclusive version, recorded live in Liverpool, of Weller and Talbot's fifth single which made #5 in the UK chart in 1984. The track also remains one of Weller's biggest hits of his career, also hitting the Top 30 in the US.

2. Forest Fire (Live) - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions

Another exclusive live track, this one recorded in London, of a current music press favourite. Forest Fire appeared on the band's classic debut album Rattlesnakes which hit #13 in the chart, this track put out as a single just missing the Top 40 at #41. Two more albums and a clutch of hits continued throughout the 80s until Cole pursued a solo career with varying degrees of success. To celebrate twenty years of Rattlesnakes, he teamed up again with the Commotions in 2004 for a one-off tour of the UK.

3. Bad Influence (Live) - The Robert Cray Band

One of the most influental and critically acclaimed blues guitarists and singers of the last four decades, Robert Cray's 1983 Bad Influence album was the one to put him on the map though he had to have wait a further three years until his mainstream breakthrough, Strong Persuader, in 1986. This live take of the title track of his 1983 album was recorded in Chicago.

4. Real Life (Just Around The Corner) - Prefab Sprout

In 1984, Prefab Sprout released their debut album Swoon which drew comparisons with Aztec Camera and Steely Dan. An instant critical favourite, the album hit #22 in the UK and the band quickly followed this up with a new single, When Love Breaks Down, a more commercial, lush affair which stalled at #88 in the chart. However, despite a couple more underachieving singles with Faron Young and Appetite, the band released their second album, Steve McQueen, in 1985 to even greater reviews than the first. The album hit #21 and When Love Breaks Down was granted a re-release. The single this time broke into the Top 40 at still a surprisingly low #25 and remains a radio classic to this day. Real Life... was featured as a bonus track on the 12" re-release. A successful career followed for the next two decades, with Paddy McAloon becoming an in-demand songwriter for artists as diverse as Kylie Minogue, Momus and Jimmy Nail. Ill health has blighted McAloon in recent years but 2009 saw the release of a new Sprout album, Let's Change The World With Music, recorded in 1993.

THE VOX BOX (1992)

Drawn from the labels of Polydor, Vertigo. Mercury, Def American and A&M

LIVE SIDE - yep, they're all live tracks. No idea if these are unique to this cassette OR when these were recorded so all help welcome

1. Don't Believe A Word - Thin Lizzy

A 1976 #12 UK hit from Northern Ireland's premier hard rock outfit, the studio version originally taken from their album Johnny The Fox.

2. Statesboro Blues - The Allman Brothers Band

Featured on the country blues legends' 1971 At Filmore East, this is the most famous version of a track originally written and recorded by Blind Willie McTell. Rolling Stone magaine name the Allman Brothers version as the ninth greatest guitar song of all time.

3. Stay With Me - Rod Stewart & The Faces

Credited to simply The Faces on release in 1971, this enduring classic hit #6 in the UK charts and released on the album A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse. The track has been performed live ever since by Rod Stewart and covered by McFly and Manic Street Preachers.

4. Crossroads - Cream

Originally written and recorded by Robert Johnson as 'Crossroad Blues', Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce's live version, retitled Crossroads, was released on their album Wheels On Fire and released as a single in the USA.

5. Hard To Handle - The Black Crowes

The most famous version of the Otis Redding original, was released on their 1990 debut Shake Your Moneymaker. Released twice as a single in the UK, it eventually hit a peak of #39 but has remained a radio staple ever since.

6. Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) - Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix's only, and posthumous, #1 in the UK. The title here is misleading. The track 'Voodoo Chile' is a 15 minute jam featured on Side 1 of the classic Electric Ladyland. A much shorter recording, 'Voodoo Child (Slight Return)' is the last track on the same album and it's this version that was released as the single....When the single appeared though, the track was confusingly titled 'Voodoo Chile'.

STUDIO SIDE

7. Get The Funk Out - Extreme

Extreme's second album Pornograffiti II propelled Extreme into orbit, mostly thanks to the acoustic ballad More Than Words which hit #2 in the UK and #1 in the US. The hard rocking Get The Funk Out was the lead single from the album and paved the way for More Than Words by hitting the UK Top 20. Since the initial demise of Extreme, lead singer Gary Cherone briefly joined Van Halen, lead giuitarist Nuno Bettencourt released a solo album entitled Schizophonic and bassist Pat Badger bizarrely had his birthday announced in The Sun every year for about a decade afterwards.

8. When You're Young - The Jam

One off single released by The Jam in 1979. The single reached #17. Regulars in the Top 40 by this time - this was their eighth - the band would hit even greater heights with their next two singles, The Eton Rifles and Going Underground.

9. She's A Girl And I'm A Man - Lloyd Cole

The lead single from Lloyd Cole's second solo - that is, without The Commotions -album, Don't Get Weird On Me Babe. The single only hit #55 and the album #21 despite good reviews.

10. Sweet Jane - The Velvet Underground

Classic VU, written by Lou Reed and pulled from their 1970 album Loaded which proved to be the band's proper swansong, the Doug Yule helmed Squeeze notwithstanding. Sweet Jane has been covered by Mott The Hoople, The Sugarcubes and -oh dear - The Kooks.

11. Shine The Light - 10cc

Well I can't actually play this cassette, but I can only assume this is 10cc's Shine A Light In The Dark which was released in the same year as this compilation, 1992, on their album ...Menwhile. The album was a comeback for the band's original four members - Graham Goldman, Godley & Creme and Eric Stewart - after the success of the 10cc/G&C compilation Changing Faces. Despite resurgence in interest for the band's back catalogue, this didn't translate into sales for new material, the album failing to break the UK Top 75.

12. Wideshire - Thousand Yard Stare

Early 90s indie favourites from Berkshire. Their singles and EPs, inluding the Spindrift EP containing this track, regularly topped the indie charts and grazed the bottom end of the official UK chart. Despite indie success, they failed to break the mainstream and were brutally bumped off by the rise in the UK Britpop scene. Wideshire was also featured on their album Hands On.

13. Donation - The Wonder Stuff

If you're name is Miles Hunt, you really ought to endear yourself to the UK music press. This didn't happen and the lead singer of the most successful band to emerge from the West Midlands grebo scene became popular rhyming slang - c.f. James Blunt. Donation featured on the band's third album Never Loved Elvis which saw them shed their indie status and become genuine pop stars. The success of the album, and lead single The Size Of A Cow, lead to their first and only #1 single with their Vic Reeves collaboration, Dizzy. No big pop moment would be complete without the inevitable bleak, comedown album (Construction For The Modern Idiot) and split followed by a decade long silence and inevitable reformation....