Orange Juice

Add Date: November 16 

Artist: Orange Juice 

Album: Coals to Newcastle sampler 

Label: Domino 

Genre: Rock, Brit pop 

Comments: Domino has recently acquired the rights to the music of the '80s Scottish pop band Orange Juice, and the comprehensive Coals to Newcastle boxset spans six CDs and a DVD. For college radio, the label has created this 18-song sampler, which essentially serves as a best-of/introduction to one of the most important, if least heralded, British bands of the '80s. Orange Juice's music, incorporating funk and even some disco into their post-punk tunes, sounds like a weird hybrid of Gang of Four and Talking Heads, and it's a precursor to many of the great Scottish and English bands--everyone from The Smiths to Belle and Sebastian to Franz Ferdinand--that have emerged in the 25 years since Orange Juice broke up.

For starters, try "Rip It Up"--the band's only semblance of a hit, which cracked the UK's Top 10 singles chart--along with "Blue Boy," "Blokes on 45," "Flesh of My Flesh" and "Felicity."