Various - Oh! You Pretty Things: Glam Queens and Street Urchins (CD)

UK three CD set. In the teenage wastelands of grey early Seventies Britain, where the musical landscape was dominated by introspective singer-songwriters and dour rock bands, the emergence of the outrageous, androgynous, peacock-plumaged Glam Rock scene provided a vital spark in the dark. Sadly the genre was quickly hijacked by the backroom hustlers of the British music industry and their mutton-dressed-as-glam pop idol marionettes. However, Oh! You Pretty Things ignores such lightweight fripperies to concentrate on the real deal. We focus on the twin central strands of Glam Rock: the cerebral and the visceral, with the artier, experimental element of the scene joined by the Ladbroke Grove street rockers and the Steve Marriott-channelling chirpy Cockney geezer street urchins, many of whom had been to drama school and knew how to strike a pose. Big hits, inexplicable misses, seminal glam texts, cult classics, key album tracks, alternative versions and even a clutch of previously unreleased but essential recordings: Oh! You Pretty Things - housed in a clamshell box that contains a 40-page booklet of amazing photos and incredible stories - assembles all these and more to act as the definitive primer of a relatively short-lived but glorious musical and pop-cultural phenomenon.

Disc 1
1 Pyjamarama - Roxy Music
2 Ma-Ma-Ma Belle - Electric Light Orchestra
3 Barbecutie - Sparks
4 Joey (Single Version) - Pretty Things
5 Tumble with Me - the Hollywood Brats
6 Rolling with My Baby (Single Version) - Silverhead
7 Teenage Archangel - Be-Bop Deluxe
8 On the Ball - Streak
9 Once Bitten Twice Shy
10 (Album Version) - Ian Hunter
11 Kerb Crawler
12 (Single Version) - Hawkwind
13 Payroll - Brutus
14 Bright Lights - England's Glory
15 Andy Warhol - Dana Gillespie
16 Blue Movie Star - Rococo
17 White Light White Heat - Mick Ronson
18 Send Me the Bill for Your Friendship - Duncan Browne
19 Powerman - the Kinks
20 Up in the Air - Bearded Lady
21 The Prettiest Star - Simon Turner
22 The Cops Are Coming -Heavy Metal Kids
23 Glittery Obituary - Blackfoot Sue
24 Street Urchin - Pink Fairies

Disc 2
1 Take Me Bak 'Ome - Slade
2 Little Darling - Thin Lizzy
3 Cat's Eyes - Zior
4 Satellite of Love - Lou Reed
5 Gun - John Cale
6 Lady Easy Action - Despair
7 Shame Shame Shame - the Hammersmith Gorillas
8 B-Movie Bedtime (Demo Version) - Doctors of Madness
9 Gimme Some Skin - Iggy & the Stooges
10 Rat Crawl - Third World War
11 Give Yourself a Chance - Agnes Strange
12 Chance Meeting - Bryan Ferry
13 The Purple Speed Queen - Curved Air
14 Earthling - Jobriath
15 Big Day - Phil Manzanera Featuring Eno
16 Around and Around - Slowload
17 Strange Movies - the Troggs
18 Rosie's Coming to Town - Rosie
19 Queenage Baby - Wayne County
20 Sweet Transvestite - Tim Curry
21 The Six Teens - Sweet

Disc 3
1 Personality Crisis - New York Dolls
2 I'm Waiting for the Man - Tina Harvey
3 Small Town, Big Adventures - John Howard
4 Space Ace - Brett Smiley
5 The Dancer - Leo Sayer
6 Peaches (What's It All About?) - Richmond
7 Going Home - Strawbs
8 I Love You for Your Mind (Not Your Body) - a Raincoat
9 The Monk - Rupert Hine
10 All I Wanna Be - Rusty
11 The Browns - Duffy
12 Last Chance - the Winkies
13 Ragman - Hard Stuff
14 Dog Meat - Flamin' Groovies
15 Dozy Dora - Bullfrog
16 Little Girl - Spiv
17 Not Fade Away (Single Version) - Fumble
18 High School Dropout - Crushed Butler
19 Dodgem Dude (Demo Version) - Michael Moorcock & the Deep Fix
20 Hollywood Nites - Kim Fowley
21 King of the Night Time World - Hollywood Stars
22 The Last of the Teenage Idols - the Sensational Alex Harvey Band
23 Saturday Gigs - Mott the Hoople