Various – Vertigo-Sampler

Nicely put Cthulhu! Yes, this compilation is one of those rare, neglected treasures. There are many 80’s anthologies, often with the same ‘most popular’ alltoocommon and typical tracks, or half the tracks unwanted. But this collection stands out as brilliant, not necessarily all good, but always interesting, and sometimes plain ODD. Each side has a kind of theme – side C being dominated by Dire Straits and its offshoots. As you say, it’s kind of neat to get the unexpected combo of Dire Straits, goth and 4ad.

Side B has some gothic tracks. Bauhaus had disbanded two years previous, the all scattered. Peter Murphy purposefully went on to create a number of beautiful albums, there is magic running through his veins – he is a stunning artist / performer. David J, too, his Etiquette of Silence is a good debut. But on this sampler we get the odder Bauhaus offshoots from Situation 2: Tones on Tail and then Love and Rockets trying to go Pop, they seemed a bit dazed to me, not knowing what to do having left the jaw dropping phenomenon of Bauhaus – but they did have some success.

I Gene Loves Jezebel hitting the scene (a bit late, and peacock jumping on the bandwagon). They manifested the androgene in a different way. I really liked their more fierce look with the earlier albums, and there was some good music.

When I first held the record and read down the track listing I couldn’t believe there was a solid chunk of 4ad left for the last side, I had to have it. And the selections! The Cocteau Twins during their Greek gods period, Pandora, sublime. Fyt is a mesmerizing instrumental (it actually stops time). And Gordon Sharp treats us to one of his finest vocalised songs. These are all real treasures to me and nice to have together on one side of vinyl.

Colourbox offers a belter of a closer. I take it it’s the vocal version? I can’t , I haven’t played it for a while. I’m going to have to dig it out. Debbion’s lamenting voice is moving, and the instrumentation is all Colourbox top-notch.

This was a fairly random discovery for me at my local brick-and-mortar record shop, among the bargain LPs for a measly $5. It's an outstanding if a kind of oddball release. Exclusively released in Canada, so from what I can see, not well known in the US or elsewhere, the purpose seems to be showcase then "up-and-coming" bands on the Vertigo, Beggars Banquet and 4AD labels for the Canadian public in 1985. Judging from the prices and stats here, I'm guessing that with the original low price point of its 1985 release, there a lot of copies of this made, at least relatively speaking for the Canadian market. I'm in the US, but a lot of expat Canadians live in this area, so I'm guessing that's how it ended up in this record store.

As a compilation, the Vertigo Sampler makes for some strange bedfellows, with the likes of Dire Straights (literally, this is the b-side for "Money for Nothing") rubbing shoulders with Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil, Colourbox and Love & Rockets, and the "goth"-ish Gene Loves Jezebel and Tones on Tail. And here is the Cult, a band that straddled the line between big stadium rock band and alt-goth. Also, we have more now "classic 80s" synthy New Wave: Tears for Fears, Big Country, Icicle Works and ABC. It shouldn't work as a collection, but it does, at least for me now in 2025. The only real common thread seems to be that these bands are mostly British. We might retcon this as "80s alternative," though I don't think Dire Straights, the Boomtown Rats or Dexy's Midnight Runners would fit with label, even if it's already a pretty broad, vague catch-all. The contrast is fascinating itself, to realize that the Cocteaus, This Mortal Coil and other innovative, hugely influential groups were doing work like this contemporary with these other acts. (Now, that might just reflect the fact that I wasn't old enough to know or appreciate those bands until the late 90s at the earliest, so my brain probably codes them more for that time than the more solidly 80s groups here.) One stray observation: though Big Country is obviously best known for "In a Big Country," a respectable classic, represented here in a live take from a concert in Austin, the guitar work in "Steeltown" is at least in the same neighborhood as the kind of stuff you might hear in dream pop and shoegaze, so perhaps they fit better with the Cocteaus and 4AD than we ever realized. I'm not saying Big Country is some secretly proto-shoegaze band - the singing style alone precludes that - but those similar elements certainly suggest a closer relation in of genre than I think one would normally presume.

Making a vinyl rip was a bit more challenging than normal - after all, this was 40 year old vinyl, and while my copy was in respectable condition, it was hardly virgin vinyl. Still, I pulled it off, so it's now in regular rotation in my digital collection. This doesn't seem to have ever been released in any other format than the vinyl in 1985; CDs were just barely on the market by then, but not exactly in common use. And I could imagine that with shifts in record labels and rights, it would be a logistical nightmare to reissue this in any format today.

One other thing to highlight: the cover art and design was all done by Peter Seville, who is perhaps best known for his iconic designs for Joy Division and New Order. It's hard to see this in a digital scan, but in the flesh, the photo in the center seems to "float" above the silver background, courtesy of an optical illusion with the tiny white border around that photo. You might think this was a sticker or image simply pasted on, but it's not - it's absolutely flat. So despite the fact there's a big 4AD presence here, we don't have Vaughan Oliver art, but I'll happily take Peter Seville.

So all in all, I highly recommend this if you can find it. It's bargain-priced on the secondary market, well worth paying extra if you can land one in NM or better condition. This, I think, it what the Stranger Things soundtrack should have sounded like.

This 2LP sampler was like a window to a different world of music for me. Yes there are the familiar more mainstream acts like Big Country, Tears For Fears and Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits featured here with some great tracks but back in 1985, this sampler was like a gateway to more ethereal music that was undiscovered to me until then. This Mortal Coil, Cocteau Twins, Tones On Tails, Love And Rockets, just to name a few really opened my eyes and ears to some amazing music. It also really prepared me for the 4AD label and all of its mysterious and glorious artists that would get very little or no radio airplay (and still don’t!). When this was offered new it was a measly $2 which was quite a bargain for so much excellent music here. If you run across a copy of this sampler in decent shape and for little $, do not hesitate to pick it up!

Track D2 is labeled "Sex Gun (instrumental version)" on the label. This is presumably an early name for this track, which uses the backing track for "Sex Gun" and adds dialogue samples from "Westworld", "The Prisoner", and other movies & TV shows. When this received release on a Colourbox album, however, it was re-titled "Just Give 'Em Whiskey." The tracks are identical.

Back in the good old days, when record labels still had some good ideas, I discovered this sampler. A few of the bands I had heard of before, but what I really loved about this double vinyl set were the stuff I hadn't heard of, most specifically, sides two and four, which consisted of artists from Beggars Banquet and 4AD.

While diverse, every track on side two is good, starting off with the Icicle Work's Book of Reason, which seems to be an exclusive mix, and far superior to the version on the Small Price of a Bicycle. Side four is equal in quality, and varying from the ethereal sounds of Cocteau Twins to the more dance/pop of the two Colourbox tracks.

While they were practically giving this compilation away (it was the same price as a 12" single), Vertigo made up for it, as I have bought at least one album (and usually more!) from all of the artists on side two and four.