Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965–1968 | ||||
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Compilation album by various artists | ||||
Released | October 2, 1972 | |||
Recorded | 1964–68 | |||
Genre | Garage rock, psychedelic rock | |||
Length | 77:25 | |||
Label | Elektra Sire | |||
Producer | Lenny Kaye | |||
Various artists chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
MSN Music (Consumer Guide) | A− [2] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era is a compilation album of American psychedelic and garage rock singles that were released during the mid-to-late 1960s. It was created by Lenny Kaye, who was a writer and clerk at the Village Oldies record shop in New York. He would later become the lead guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. Kaye produced Nuggets under the supervision of Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman. Kaye conceived the project as a series of roughly eight LP installments focusing on different US regions, but Elektra convinced him that one double album would be more commercially viable. [4] It was released on LP by Elektra in 1972 with liner notes by Kaye that contained one of the first uses of the term "punk rock". [5] It was reissued with a new cover design by Sire Records in 1976. In the 1980s, Rhino Records issued Nuggets in a series of fifteen installments, and in 1998 as a 4-cd box set.
Kaye was unsure whether Elektra Records would put out the album, so he threw his favorite songs together and made them fit into a concept. [6] Elektra hired lawyer Michael Kapp to track down the original artists and secure licensing. [6] Speaking in 2017, Kaye reflected "I would've made it more 'garage rock' as opposed to these kind of weirder things, like Sagittarius or even the Blues Project. A lot of it falls outside the parameters of what we've come to define as garage rock." [6]
Though there were plans for a second Nuggets volume, Elektra did not choose the option. According to Kaye, he supplied the label with a list of potential songs, but they were not able to obtain licensing for most and the project was cancelled. [6]
Jon Savage, in his history of the UK punk rock scene, England's Dreaming, cites Nuggets as a major influence on punk bands and includes it in his essential punk discography, alongside Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power and The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat .
Many other compilation albums took their cue from Nuggets, including the Pebbles , Rubble and Back From the Grave series. Nuggets spawned an entire cottage industry of small record labels dedicated to unearthing and releasing obscure but worthy garage and psychedelic rock music from the 1960s.
In 1998 Rhino brought the original LP to CD, reproducing the original song sequence and liner notes. However, rather than releasing a single-disc release of the original LP, Rhino put the original disc in a box set with three other discs, an extra 91 songs in total that were not on the original LP. Contrary to popular belief, many of the songs were American Top 40 hits: more than a third of the original Nuggets would fall into that category, while Rhino's expanded set featured such smash hits as "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock (#1), "Louie, Louie" by the Kingsmen (#2), "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (#2), "Little Bit o' Soul" by the Music Explosion (#2), and "Time Won't Let Me" by the Outsiders (#5).
"Louie, Louie", "Laugh, Laugh", "Farmer John", "Psycho", "The Witch", and The Gestures' "Run, Run, Run" fall outside the set's stated time frame of 1965–1968; "Louie, Louie" having been released in 1963 and the rest in 1964.
In Europe in 2006 Rhino released a remastered version of the album featuring the original 1972 tracklist on a single compact disc in a miniaturized replica of the original gatefold sleeve. However, unlike the original album the tracks were presented using their mono mixes. In 2012 the album was again remastered, this time directly from the same tapes as the original 1972 release, featuring mono and stereo mixes. Available in double LP and digital formats, this version included updated release notes from Kaye and Jac Holzman.
It was voted number 479 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). [7] In 2003, the album was ranked number 196 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, [8] maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list. [9] It was later ranked down at 405 on the 2020 edition. [10]
The same tracks appear in the same order as the original double album.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, Rhino released a series of fifteen albums that bore the Nuggets name. The first twelve of these albums each focused on either a specific garage-rock subgenre or location, while the last three took a more global approach. This series provided much of the source material for the box set.
Rhino released Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969 , a four-CD box set, in 2001. While the original Nuggets focused on the American scene, the second compilation shifted its focus to the rest of the world, collecting cuts from the United Kingdom (such as the Pretty Things and Small Faces), Australia (the Easybeats), New Zealand (the La De Da's), Canada (the Guess Who and The Haunted), Japan (the Mops), Iceland (Thor's Hammer), Peru (We All Together), and Brazil (Os Mutantes).
Rhino released two more compilations using the Nuggets title, Hallucinations: Psychedelic Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults and Come to the Sunshine: Soft Pop Nuggets from the WEA Vaults , in 2004. Both discs were released through Rhino's internet-only label Rhino Handmade in limited pressings of 7500 each.
Rhino also released Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The Second Psychedelic Era, 1976-1995, a four-CD set of recordings by bands influenced by the original Nuggets, in late 2005.
Lenny Kaye, who compiled the original Nuggets double LP set, also compiled a second volume that was never released. Many of the cuts appeared on the later Nuggets releases, but some did not. Below is the tentative track listing for Lenny Kaye's unreleased second Nuggets volume. [11]