The more I trawl through these covermount CDs, the more it becomes clear that the ones that work are those that give themselves a clear focus, a niche canvas. Like Sounds of the New West, Studio One Selector, (Reciprocess +/VS.).
There seems to be a kind of category- or format-mistake in going for the "round-up of the best-of" approach. A best-of list is acceptable in print: we know it's there to provoke thought and argument rather than to be definitive. And if it's obviously too wide of the mark, it's easily dismissed and forgotten in a trice. But an hour-long CD? That takes, yes, a whole hour to listen to. The notes suggest that the selection is at least partly informed by readers' nominations, but that doesn't get off the hook that this is plainly nothing like a "best of 2008". Uncut have fallen into the same trap in the past (1, 2), and, if you get to the end of the CD, you feel pretty grim: was that all there was to 2008?
Mind you, I've just checked through my database, and, aside from James Yorkston's finest, it does indeed look a little barren from here.
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