‘Nuggets’: the compilation album that changed rock music forever
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(Credits: Far Out / Sonic Boom Records)
Ever since The Beatles redefined the album format through releases like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Revolver, compilation albums have fallen by the wayside, written off as cheap marketing tactics or cash-in releases by unimaginative record labels. If you take a step back, however, you can see the unparalleled power of compilations on the record-buying public. Throughout their history, there have been few compilations to rival the enduring power or popularity of the psychedelic compilation Nuggets.
Originally issued by Elektra Records in 1973, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968, aimed to chart the rise of psychedelic and garage rock, which had come to dominate the counterculture age of the 1960s. While, by that time, everybody had heard of artists like Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, and Cream, Nuggets shed light on some of the more obscure psych releases that might have bypassed the mainstream upon their initial release, including works by The Seeds, Nazz, The Strangeloves, and The Electric Prunes, to name a few.
The tracklisting was compiled by Lenny Kaye, who was, at the time, working at the iconic eponymous record shop on Bleecker Street in New York City. Initially, Kaye envisioned Nuggets as an eight-part series, with each instalment focusing on one specific region within the United States. However, the infinite wisdom of the music industry stepped in, reducing the plans to one double-LP release covering a wide variety of regions and local scenes.
Reportedly, Kaye did not think Elektra would ever put out the compilation, so he simply used the tracklisting to collect his favourite songs from the period. Speaking to The Vinyl District in 2017, he recalled, “I would’ve made it more ‘garage rock’ as opposed to these kind of weirder things, like Sagittarius or even The Blues Project,” explaining, “A lot of it falls outside the parameters of what we’ve come to define as garage rock.”
Whatever its exact genre could be defined as, Nuggets caught the attention of an entirely new generation of music listeners upon its release to the masses in 1973. It both opened up the world of garage rock and psychedelia to young music fans who were not around for its original run of popularity, as well as shedding light on some of the releases that casual listeners might have missed the first time around.
Given the relatively low retail price of compilation albums in comparison to a standalone release, both in terms of production and sales, Nuggets soon found its way into the hands of skint young punks, which were springing up across America during the mid-1970s.
Garage rock and psychedelia are the natural predecessors of punk rock, and when listening to early releases from the CBGB punk scene in New York City, it is clear that many of the artists had Nuggets on heavy rotation. The album almost single-handedly earned a spot for these weird and wonderful tracks in the definitive history of rock and roll when many had been forgotten about.
Given the intense success of the compilation album, Elektra reportedly had plans for a follow-up. After all, the 1960s certainly had no shortage of obscure garage psychedelic tracks to be enjoyed. However, tracking down the original artists proved too colossal a task for the label, and the plans were soon scrapped. However, during the 1990s, Rhino Records resurrected the series, issuing a CD box set in 1998, which carried the psychedelic torch of the original release, speaking to its lasting legacy.
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