A delightful sampler album full of original and exiting sounds. It's impossible to ignore talents like Nick Lowe with his song "I Love My Label," Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds and Wreckless Eric. Stiff records, formed last summer, call themselves "undertakers to the industry" and go under the merry slogan "If they're dead, we'll sign 'em." Their music's just as much fun. Maybe it is derivative, perhaps it includes some of punk rock's emphasis on style rather than content. But it's an album I'll be playing to death.
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