Description
• A four-hour, 3CD anthology of the late 60s British pop scene during the early years of Radio 1.
• Big hits and intriguing misses from some of the biggest acts and most prominent writing/ production teams of the era.
In 1967, British pop radio underwent a seismic change when the pirate stations that had ruled the airwaves over the previous couple of years were declared illegal by an Act of Parliament and replaced by a national station controlled by publicly-funded broadcaster the BBC.
The arrival of Radio 1 saw the British pop scene remade in the station's own image, with a new wave of songwriting and production teams competing to create bright, brassy, relentlessly upbeat tracks that would be embraced by Radio 1's all-important playlist.
While The Love Affair, The Herd, The Tremeloes and The Foundations were among the groups who made the headlines, the key figures were really the backroom auteurs: names like Tony Macaulay, Howard Blaikley and arranger Keith Mansfield were all integral to the new, homogenised pop radio sound.
'All Things Bright And Beautiful: The UK Pop Explosion’ is a 3CD, four-hour celebration of this pivotal period in British pop history, with a huge number of key hits – including several featured in the opening hour of Radio 1's first broadcast – joined by more minor successes and some 45s that received considerable airplay but nevertheless failed to make the grade.
Housed in Grapefruit's standard clamshell box packaging with a 48-page booklet and track- by-track annotation, it's another essential purchase for any late 60s pop aficionado.