A British Invasion Lesson, And More
350792
This compilation CD of all of the Applejacks' recordings for Decca demonstrates (as do a number of other such releases out there) that the state of British rock and pop in 1964 and 1965 was far deeper than the groups that dominated the record charts in the United States as part of the British Invasion. For Americans, unfortunately, this group was little more than a footnote in Beatles history: the group that recorded Lennon and McCartney's "Like Dreamers Do." The Applejacks, though, were much more than that. This CD proves the band to be a perfectly competent, distinctive (mostly because of their preponderance for harpsichord-ish sounding keyboards) British beat group. Perhaps they were not as hard-rocking and bluesy as their Birmingham colleagues, the Denny Laine-led first edition of the Moody Blues, but these recordings by the Applejacks are pleasant. The hit single "Tell Me When" is a highlight of the collection, as is the cover of Ray Davies's "I Go to Sleep," a somewhat experimental arrangement. A few of the 26 tracks are a little awkward, with the stray out-of-tune backing vocals or slightly off-kilter guitar part here and there, but overall this is an album that every fan of British invasion rock and pop will enjoy on some level. Recommended.
4683763
The Brit Box has taken a beating from music critcs who have derided it for not being representative enough of the British indie scene, not including enough of the right songs, and not including some defining artists of the scene.  I'm not here to do that.  Instaed, I'll focus on the music that is on the box.  So let's break this bad boy down one disc at a time.

DISC 1:

A lot of good stuff here. This disc includes the classic Smiths song "How Soon Is Now," plus classics from the Stone Roses, The Cure, The La's, The Charlatans, Happy Mondays, and Echo & The Bunnymen. The Primitives' "Crash" was a great find for me, and "April Skies" may be the Jesus & Mary Chain's best song.  I'm not big on Inspiral Carpets, but that's just nit-picking.

DISC 2:

Also pretty good.  Aside from Ride, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub being represented with some of their best stuff, I found some great tracks in Catherine Wheel's "I Want To Touch You," and Curve's "Coast Is Clear."  "Shoot You Down" by Birdland is classic, as is "Trip & Slide" by Bleach.  I don't like Thousand Yard Stare, but it wasn't enough to ruin the disc for me.

DISC 3:

Not as strong as the first two discs, but still worth hearing.  Disc 3 is front-loaded with great tracks by Suede, Swervedriver, New Order, James and Superstar.  Then it hits a bit of a dry spell, even though great tracks by Oasis and Pulp (plus "Speeed King" by These Animal Men) are in the middle.  The disc has Supergrass and Menswear towards the end, and it closes with a rampaging "Stutter" by Elastica.  Overall, I have few complaints here, except that I can think of four or five other tracks off Parklife that I would have chosen besides "Tracy Jacks."

DISC 4:

This is where it starts to come apart.  The Britpop scene was changing, and not as much great music was being made in that style.  Personally, I think the box set's producers should have limited this set from 1984-1996 instead of taking it through to 1999.  There was plenty of great music made during that time to fill 4 discs.

Anyway, about the music on disc 4: There are good songs on here, and they're mostly saddled at the beginning.  Ash's "Girl From Mars" is great, and so is Sleeper and Kula Shaker.  However, this disc drags after track 6, with very little to pick it up.  Silver Sun's "Service" is good, and there are superb tracks by Mansun and The Verve.  "Oh Jim" isn't a bad closer.  Yet after the high level of quality throughout discs 1-3, the last disc is a bit of a letdown.

I won't do much complaining about what isn't on here.  Apparently, the producers of this set weren't able to license Slowdive.  Apart from that, I think the biggest omission is Depeche Mode; some Violator-era tracks would have fit in nicely on this set.

Yes, the Brit Box could have been better.  But it's not as terrible as the music press has made it out to be.
1452767
I've longed for a great compilation of British Invasion tunes - from '63 - '67 or thereabouts.  I found it in this compilation.  I love the mixture from the more rebellious to the simple pop sound that came over to give us all something to stretch even higher from.  Great, simply great tunes.  I could listen to these for the rest of my life, and hey - I plan to do just that.
4212241
This series was a pleasant surprise for me (unlike the previous reviewer, I had not seen the original series on TV). Each of the 18 episodes discusses a different battle tactic, such as blitzkrieg, flank attack, etc. Included are two examples, from two different conflicts, of each tactic. The narrator lists the key processes to each tactic, such as "objective," "intelligence," etc. and details how the commander met or didn't meet the requirements for the tactic. Most of the examples cited are from World War Two, but also included are tactics from the Korean War, Vietnam War, the French-Indochina War, the two Gulf Wars and World War One. I've seen many documentaries of World War Two, so it was enlightening to hear about the tactics used in some of the other wars.

I was not able to detect any errors of fact in the entire series, and I was carefully listening.

The price for this series might seem high, but remember, you're getting 18 full-length episodes. I found it well worth the money. I'll watch it again.
281221
Dominic Sandbrook did impress me with his knowledge of American culture and politics. Not bad for an Englishman. I surely couldn't write a similar tome about Britain in the same period.

The book covers all sorts of cultural and political phenomena unique to the 1970s, including gas lines, Bruce Springsteen, the New South, the early affirmative action court decisions, All in the Family, and busing in South Boston. There was a little bit of liberal sneering toward those backwards conservatives (among which I count myself) but only a little. In most regards I think Sandbrook attempted to represent the populist right faithfully and without caricatures.
2877188
"We are but warriors for the working-day" - Henry V.

A fine study of the initial British army that confronted overwhelming numbers of German soldiers in the opening days and months of World War I.

Robin Neillands is a bit repetitious in style, but so are the actions of war.  Sir John French, the British commander, comes off badly, but seems to deserve the criticism.

An enjoyable and informative read.
1732011
Americans who read this study of the Normandy invasion will be astonished to learn how little U.S. troops contributed to Overlord, and how clueless American generals, soldiers, and airmen were. Hastings makes it clear that Montgomery was a fatuous braggart, and that just about all his initiatives went wrong (and that's before the debacle of Market Garden!), but forgives him because he was able to "read" the battlefield. By contrast, Eisenhower, Bradley, and such lesser American commanders as Patton were sadly lacking in strategic vision, no matter that virtually all *their* initatives went right.

When things go badly in the east, where the British and Canadian divisions landed, Hastings generally refers to them as "the Allies," and sometimes even "the British and the Americans," even though there were no Americans in the two-month stalemate at the gates of Caen.

On the west, where the American army quickly broke out of its beachead and romped through thousands of square miles of Britanny and the Cherbourg peninsula, their success is passed over as of no importance. The Germans feared Montgomery the most, Hastings explains, so they put their best divisions in front of the Anglo-Canadian forces, while assigning second-rate and understrength units on the American side. Curiously, the Americans suffered half again as many casualties in the first three months of the campaign. I was left scratching my head over Hastings's skewed vision of the campaign.

I go on at length about this aspect of the book because it is likely to turn off the American reader, and that would be a mistake. Hastings is a good and serious historian, unlike such earlier chroniclers as Stephen Ambrose and Cornelius Ryan; his analysis of German strengths can't be beat, and he interleaves these military-history lessons with scores of personal accounts, some from his own interviews, some from previously unpublished documents. The book should be read by every student of World War Two.

Just don't place much faith in Hastings's view of the comparative merits of the American army on the one hand, and the British and Canadian armies on the other. (His follow-up study, "Armageddon", is much more even-handed.)

-- Dan Ford at the Warbird's Forum
2021835
A mid 60s band from Cleveland, Ohio, that was heavily influenced by the British Invasion. This outfit had one big regional hit and a great one it was. "It's Cold Outside" is one of the premier examples how British Invasion music could, in the right hands, be synthesized into Power Pop. The band itself also synthesized - as shown in an elaborate, slightly confusing, but truly remarkable in terms information - into the basis for a number of local groups membership of which included Joe Walsh and Eric Carmen.

Sad to say, the bulk of The Choir's output never matched their great song; nor - by virtue of dishonest agents and managers - did they reap even the feeble benefits of the song.

A great reminder that CLEVELAND ROCKS!
1313931
I've been a reader of Gramophone for many years and have learned, as have many non-Brits, to make allowances for the strong British bias in the opinions offered in the magazine. This carries over to the Good CD Guide. I don't have the newest one--the 2005 edition--and most likely won't buy it largely because I have this recent one, and more important, because although the opinions in the book are often well-reasoned, they tend to be, how shall I say, old-fogeyish. I'm a great believer in preserving and treasuring historic recordings, but surely good recordings (excepting British ones, of course) didn't dry up in, say, 1980.

I agree with a previous reviewer who indicated that the Penguin Guide (which is also British) is more helpful. It's easier to navigate, too.
2194403
Published in April of 2017 by Random House Audio
Read by Arthur Morey
Duration: 18 hours, 46 minutes
Unabridged

As Europe collapsed before the Nazi onslaught several governments-in-exile retreated to the United Kingdom in an effort to support their struggling underground resistance movements and to remind the world of their plight. Some brought a lot of soldiers (Poland), some brought money, some brought civilian ships and some brought not much more than a loud voice and the will to use it.

This was not an easy alliance. The UK was xenophobic and stunned at the rapid fall of France and many of the governments in exile were being ripped apart from their own internal politics. Misunderstandings, patronizing attitudes and differing agendas make everything more difficult.

When America and the Soviets joined the war the UK shifted its attention away from the governments-in-exile to its new, much more potent allies and those new allies had different agendas. Those new agendas often did not match those of the governments-in-exile. President Roosevelt was surprisingly indifferent to them and the Soviet Union was only interested in gobbling up as many of them as it could.

Olson begins her history with the stories of how each country fell to Nazi Germany and their government's reacted. Most fled, but not all did. France did both with both Vichy France and Charles de Gaulle claiming supremacy. These stories are extremely well told and quite gripping.

The middle part of the book deals with Britain's intelligence or outright military operations in the conquered countries.  Interestingly, the UK's intelligence service thought that it was brilliant, but the reality was far from that. If you have seen the old TV show Hogan's Heroes, the reality is that the UK was far more like Colonel Klink than like Colonel Hogan. Truly embarrassing and idiotic mistakes were made for years on end.

The end of the book is very moving as it features the return of the different governments and what happened when they returned. For some, they were hailed as heroes, some were derided and some just disappeared behind the Iron Curtain.

Lynne Olson has a real talent for writing history and the reader, Arthur Morey did an excellent job as well. This was an informative, entertaining and often very moving history.
405747
With all the others reviews here - especially the one posted already by Poetmater - I won't go into the details of this DVD which includes the two-part, two-hour documentary made for, and broadcast by, the BBC plus nearly an hour of bonus materials including 3 deleted scenes and 7 videos. I did note from another review that there are a significant number of additional deleted scenes on the Bluray version but, since I was sent the standard DVD version, I cannot comment on them. Hardcore Queen fans - of which there are many - may want to opt for the BD. As for me, I really enjoyed their music but was more of a casual fan during their tenure so I actually learned things new to me from the extensive contemporary interviews with the band members, their manager and the various producers, plus a few music journalists.

I've seen at least one of the Under Review titles about the band but they tend to have more journalists and virtually no band members and the quality of the performance video in the UR Dvds is just "ok".

So, from the standpoint of the casual Queen fan, this one gets 5 stars from me - as much of the BBC-TV quality is here.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"
152547
An excellent summary of little and big things foreigners might like to know about Britain. Contains interesting statistics and great recommendations for material (books, films, etc.) to illustrate the points made. As teacher, I strongly recommend to my colleagues interested in complementing their classes with cultural information.
1059095
Let's be clear about what this book is and what it isn't. It IS an enjoyable, atmospheric popular survey of the topic -- an expansion of the script of a well-done BBC documentary film written by its producer. It is NOT an in-depth history by a professional historian specializing in the subject. Its original contribution to the literature lies in some nicely selected oral history vignettes by eyewitnesses, which do not contribute important facts to the record but which definitely add a flavor of "being there".

As we would expect from the BBC, the account is basically balanced in terms of describing Allied vs. Axis hardships and sacrifices. Not surprisingly, British contributions are highlighted and there is a hint of gentlemanly joy in jabbing at US mistakes (e.g., Admiral King's obstinacy regarding use of convoys when the grey wolves came to American waters). Is there a tendency to use the term "Allied" (instead of American) in describing the triumphs of air power over the u-boats in the latter stages of the war?  Perhaps just my imagination; you decide.

The most interesting individual character in this account is the German submarine navy commander, Admiral Doenitz, who tried to counter with a small staff and sheer Nazi zeal the much better staffed, financed, and more scientific British anti-submarine warfare effort.

Overall, a book well worth trying by general readers and period specialists alike.
3170935
I am enjoying the history lesson Mr. Hannan provides.  As a US reader, I appreciate Mr. Hannan's inclusion of personalities and events which the British settlers of the North American continent contributed to the broad sweep of history.  As an English speaker, I appreciate the exploration of the roots of the experiences and attitudes which underlie Mr. Hannan's theme.  This book has a "point of view".  Be prepared to exercise critical thinking. (th)
1853925
Anyone seriously interested in the grand strategy of Britain in relation to Germany and its wider place in the world needs to read this book. It challenges some common conceptions about the plight of Britain and it going it alone against the might of the Axis powers: an understanding that underestimates the role of Empire and Britain's superior position in relation to resources, both material and geographical. The book debunks several myths about ariel bombardment among other things, and contains an array of helpful statistics about actually war casualties. More than an eye-opener, this is an important challenge to the official and popular ideological history of the Second World War.
4423859
Very interesting! A good history lesson and I see why the British rallied around him!
2382914
I found this clear  and interesting. The fact that it has enraged the British reader who has given it one star, to the point of raving and ranting, shows that it hits the mark! This is precisely the sort of work the world needs.
Well worth the read.