Spectrum are hopeful if they thought Valentine’s Day would make us this forgiving. Making an indie love mix-tape is a fine, painstaking art. This is little more than confused fingerpainting.
There’s the odd gem (Tindersticks, The Housemartins, Serge Gainsbourg), but they are outnumbered by bands that were bad enough the first time round (James, Ocean Colour Scene, Semisonic). You’re left wondering, too, why anyone would choose the Cure’s insipid Pictures Of You, one of their worst moments, over Lovesong or Close To Me. The best tracks (Pulp’s Do You Remember The First Time, Paul Weller’s You Do Something To Me) are widely reproduced elsewhere, not least on their parent albums, which no one should be without.
The rest is mainly inessential. Anyone of the 25-30 age bracket that this is so clearly targeted at will already have the The La’s There She Goes and The Cranberries’ Linger burned so indelibly into their brains that nostalgia will be neurologically impossible. The tracklist hangs together poorly, the presentation is basic and the impression is of a lazy ‘them were the days’ album for people who never liked music that much anyway. If your beloved buys this for you as a declaration of their feelings, chuck them immediately.
