Customer Rating:  
Summary: Decent Enough.
Comment: Most of the songs are good, but very few are actually very good. They are consistently decent. The more interesting tracks for me are : Starry Eyes, I Don't Remember Your Name, Girl, Held Up High, Imitation Jewellery, and Rock and Roll Love Letter (which is a cover of a Tim Moore song).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good retrospective of a footnote band
Comment: This is an enjoyable disc that I bought to get two essential tracks from the era, "Rock and Roll Lovesong" and "Starry Eyes." The rest of the disc is not as strong as other bands but still an enjoyable listen.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Catchy tunes, one hit, good music
Comment: I have The Records debut outing in the US on vinyl. I remembered Starry Eyes playing on the radio with that Byrds like jingle jangle guitar. This is a nice collection. You get a good cross section of what The Records were all about. Yes, they were blatant about their Byrds, Beatles, et al influences, but they never denied it either. A good addition to any CD collection.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is Power-Pop at it's best!!
Comment: For the earlier reviewers who said that these guys were never a great band and that this material is dated, well, you are just plain wrong! I have always been a major fan of Power-Pop since the mid-70's, and this is the CD that I measure all great Power-Pop by. I think the songs included here are as good, if not better, than anything my other power-pop heroes like, BADFINGER, THE RASPBERRIES, THE DB'S, JELLYFISH, FLAMING GROOVIES, THE POSIES, etc., released in their prime. The Will Birch/John Wicks songwriting tandem was WAY underrated. I could go on for several paragraphs as to how good these guys sounded, but if you have ever liked Rock and Roll with great pop harmonies and Beatlesque guitars cranked to 11, then, my friends, you NEED this CD! You WILL NOT be disappointed. The songs here are as fresh as they were in the early 80's.
Customer Rating:
Summary: intelligent power pop bubblegum
Comment: If The Records had been named the CDs or the DVDs, I guess they still might be around. Will Birch and John Wicks wrote snappy pop gems: wry, youthful sounding, but with a sneaky, clever angst-lite underbelly that most missed. While Starry Eyes was their only US hit, Birch and Wicks wrote a plethora of catchy songs with slightly off-center lyrics. Teenarama, Starry Eyes, Up All Night, Girls that Don't Exist, All Messed up and Ready to Go, Girl, and Affection Rejected were from the first album: Shades in Bed in England and eponymous in the US. Songs from this album were mostly produced by Robert "Mutt" Lange and Tim Friese-Greene (who joined Talk Talk after their first album for It's My Life and their masterpiece Colour of Spring). One of the highlights of The Records debut was their *super* tight harmonies, and they shine here. Also featured from The Records first album is some of the most lyrical and strongest lead guitar accent work I've ever heard in pop music, provided by Huw Gower. It really gave the album some ooomph. Check Gower out on Girl, Affection Rejected, and Up All Night. The second album "Crashes" was Album of the Month in Stereo Review. It is characterized by a little more mature and stronger songs than the debut LP, and includes the fabulous Girl in the Golden, I Don't Remember Your Name, Hearts Will Be Broken, the classic Hearts in Her Eyes, the Beatlesque Spent a Week With You Last Night, Rumour Sets the Woods Alight, and the driving anthem of frustration The Same Mistakes. However, Jude Cole's (who had a string of minor US hits in the 90s) guitar doesn't quite pack the punch of Gower's, and Craig Leon's production has a little less bite than Lange and Friese-Greene. The third and final major release was "Music on Both Sides," which frankly only had enough good material for probably one side. Also, and inexplicably, the signature tight vocals of the Records were discarded for the harsh and off-key Chris Gent. Jude Cole left, and the revolving lead guitar role fell to Chris Whelan. Selfish Love, Not So Much The Time, and Imitation Jewellery were among the strongest cuts and are featured here. Rock and Roll Love Letter was a poppy song from the pre-Shades in Bed Days that sounds like the Bay City Rollers on vitamins. Unfortunately, the first two albums are not available on CD (as my vinyl copies wear down), so until then, this will have to do....
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