Nuggets II (Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969)

After Rhino’s expansion of Lenny Kaye’s original 1972 Nuggets compilation into a four CD box that added three times as many selections from the wide American underground of that era, the same core creative team, led by Gary Stewart and Alec Palao with the contributions of many others, came up with a remarkable similarly-sized sequel in 2001’s Nuggets II set. Per the subtitle, its main focus is on the UK’s equivalent scenes and standouts, mostly featuring acts that rarely if ever followed in the way of the British Invasion’s more successful exports. Yet songs from a wide number of countries, from Uruguay to Japan to Czechoslovakia and more, flesh out Nuggets II to create a reasonable overview of the rich mod, garage & psychedelic scenes that seemed to be bursting out everywhere at the time. Singling out even a small number of tracks doesn’t do the set proper justice, but covering everything from the work of soon-to-be-legends – to note just one example, David Bowie appears in his mod-era Davy Jones & The Lower Third guise – to striking local heroes like Australia’s The Masters Apprentices and the Netherlands’ Q65 makes the set a rich listen, both in its own right and as a launching point for deeper dives.