There's not one track on this two disc set that isn't brilliant. That much is unarguable, whether it's the ancient blues stuff that kicks it off through to early sixties soul-pop like the Shirelles. Buy it and you'll have a great time.
I'm just not convinced by the case I think they're making that this is the "roots of trash and garage". Most of the really old songs here are part of the warp and woof of post-Presley pop and trying to say they have a specific impact on "trash and garage" (styles/genres that were only ever defined retrospectively) is special pleading. The Stones certainly played "Route 66" (here in a Nat King Cole version), and the Stones certainly influenced the Standells, but while that does make "Route 66" a, beggin' yer pardon your honour, root of the Standells, it's a very tortuous and indirect one. What the Standells and their thousands of mid-sixties peers, and all subsequent generations of punk and garage bands really took from the British Invasion was attitude, not repertoire. The other root for trash and garage was of course taking drugs, or at least pretending to, but there's no trace of that here.
Another case in point: Vince Taylor's "Brand New Cadillac". Great record. Great cover by the Clash, many years later. But a root of trash and garage? Hmm. Chan Romero's "Hippy Hippy Shake". Great record. Covered by the Swingin' Blue Jeans. Does that make them a trash/garage band? I'm getting very confused.
Of course, I could have this all wrong. Unfortunately, the sleeve notes, which could have enlightened me, are written in such a convoluted, tortuous manner I can't read 'em for more than a paragraph without one of my heads coming on.
So: hugely enjoyable compilation, unreservedly recommended for musical content, but if you asked me to explain what it's a compilation of, I'd struggle to say much more than "good old songs which younger bands covered". Massive, massive fun, though.