Collecting the spotty early years of Alan McGee's label, from the sublime to Everett True

A bratty younger brother to the likes of Beggars, Factory (note the very Factory, misspelled name of this package) and Rough Trade, it took a while for label head Alan McGee to start releasing the kind of music which would see the label move from its DIY squat scene enclave to quality releases with genuine chart bothering tendencies. This compilation covers the tentative first steps, the psychedelic phase, the leather trousers, pudding bowl haircuts, Chelsea boots, and the ramshackle, borderline twee nature of the music all acting as a pre-cursor to the C86 scene just round the corner.

Although this era of Creation has been compiled before with the long deleted Creation Soup box-set, it’s definitely one which is worth revisiting again - even if it does mean having to listen to the dreadful "73 In ‘83" by The Legend, AKA journalist Everett True, the label’s very own Cut The Crap.

Over the five discs you get glammy shlock from The X-Men, Byrds-indebted indie jangle from McGee and label partner Dick Green in the guise of Biff Bang Pow!, barely in tune singles from The Pastels, and the label’s first true classics: the Mod fury of “Think” by The Jasmine Minks and “Why Does the Rain” by The Loft, both early signs of McGee’s knack of finding superior pieces of glum indie.

Creation’s fortunes, and McGee’s attention took a swift turn with the advent of “Upside Down”, the debut Jesus and Mary Chain single, the intro of which remains one of the most thrilling thirty years on. Within the context of the music surrounding it, it sounds even more like one of the most glorious head fucks ever, the huge drum sound, the enveloping feedback and the blood splattered appropriation of bubble-gum pop led to their first flirtation with major labels, signing the band and in essence, himself as manager to Warners subsidiary Bianco y Negro.

Although this didn’t go according to plan, “Upside Down” gave the label the money needed to survive (it eventually sold 50,000 copies) and soon came other classics: the dreamy feyness of Primal Scream’s debut “All Fall Down”, and “Don’t Slip Up” the lone release by The Meat Whiplash who took the anarcho punk pop of “Upside Down” as a template and scuzzed it up, their own template being worked used by My Bloody Valentine (who at the time were bad Cramps copyists).

The final three discs take in BBC sessions, live tracks from McGee’s nightclub The Living Room, unreleased rarities and demos of varying quality, and although the majority doesn’t add much to the story, the demo of “Upside Down”, “Just Like Honey” and unreleased tracks by The Meat Whiplash are absolute musts.

Creation were about to release some fantastic music from the likes of Felt, The House of Love and electro perv (twenty years before that was cool) Momus just after this period, so a similar release of that era would be a better reflection of how they were ‘doing it for the kids’. Despite these being the zitty years of the label, this compilation is an important chronicle of the label's beginning - it’s indicative of how they operated up until their closure in 2000, essential and beautifully flawed.