Joe Meek: The Alchemist of Pop - Home Made Hits and Rarities 1958-1966 [Box set]

This double CD contains all of what music journalists would call the 'essentials'. All Meek's top 10 productions are here - Johnny Remember Me, Telstar, Have I The Right, Just Like Eddie, Don't You Think It's Time etc. Some of the rest are pretty weak, however, proving that a song didn't need to be top-notch to get into the charts. Most of Meek's classic non-hits are on other compilations, or not on CD at all, sadly.

This is 85% right, as far as Meek fans would put out on a compilation. Due to Meek's prolific and diverse output, though, a 'definitive' compilation would be 3 or 4 times as long. For early 60s music fans who just want the basics to go with their existing collections, this is great. For those wishing to get a more complete picture of Joe Meek's output, then 'Alchemist Of Pop' is a good place to start, but they should investigate the CDs of the major artists on here (Leyton, Tornados, Heinz, Glenda Collins etc.)

Joe Meek flourishes on here from his last productions for the big boys(end of 1959) to the very end of his independent productions in 1967. All the hits are here, plus the misses & the classics that people failed to notice at the time. If you wonder why an obscure single from that era has a huge price tag, it's usually because it's an RGM(Robert George Meek) production. 2 CD's worth gives you a very broad range of Joe's work & shows you how carefully he crafted his work-some very ordinary songs become one magic performance after another, so often the result of Joe's efforts-as a result of which, several artists, notably John Leyton & Lord Sutch, swallowed their own self-doubts and went on to lucrative or distinguished careers.

This set captures the heart of British pop music from 1960-1964 and then shows there was talent to burn beyond the charts from 1965-1967, too. Joe Meek was probably too complex and contradictory a character to be captured as easily, but the set does full credit to his professionalism and enthusiasm to create a perfect single-Johnny Remember Me,Telstar & Have I the Right being just 3 good examples of how often he did it or got darn close to it-there's ten times as many reasons to buy this!

The contents of the cd are a true eye opener for me too. Of course there are the hits – Telstar-,(wasn’t this number 1 during the Cuba crisis ?), has to remain one of the most joyful records ever (even if it was Mrs Thatchers favourite tune) and the echoed out from another world sound of Johhnny Remember Me is another highlight. But there is a lot of other quirky & interesting stuff here too. Some of it is a bit derivative, many of the vocal deliveries are , shall we say, thin but together the collection is very listenable () & there are tracks here that are as good as any US rock & roll instrumental group summoned up plus some truly classic novelty records. So Ok not all of Heinz tracks are as forgivable as Just Like Eddie

The evidence is also here that Joe did adapt to a post Merseybeat age & whilst his creations do not necessarily rant with The Stones or The Beatles then they certainly match anything by. say, the Swinging Blue Jeans . Actually that doesn’t sound very nice which was not my intention

Joe Meek clearly missed out on anything up to a dozen hit records perhaps in the early days because his business was undercapitalised , perhaps later because he was just a teeny weeny bit difficult to work with which tended to result in a BBC ban being slapped on more than a normal percentage of output. Either way I have never heard such a consistent collection of tracks of early 60s music that didn’t sell in copious quantities.

But, lets face it- 56 tracks? That’s quite awe inspiring if you don’t know the work (could this be important enough to be an oevre?) & I have to say I found the entire thing unlistenable when stuck in a rush hour jam this morning. But choose your moment , listen with a generous heart & learn that there was life in British music before The Beatles