Beat the Beat!

Mari Wilson

Since recently listening to (and listening to, and listening to) the Compact Organization compilation 'A Young Person's Guide to Compact' – reissued in 2007 by the wonderful Les Temps Modernes – I've been in a mad rush trying to track down many of the label's original releases. I was particularly taken by Mari Wilson and after managing to find a couple records on ebay, I came upon this video for "Beat the Beat," which is probably my favorite track from the compilation.



Slowly discovering the Compact Organization has been quite fun and the more I listen the more I want to buy up all of their records. Virna Lindt, Shake Shake!, Tot Taylor – They all knew pop music like the back of their hand, and they were good at it! No, they didn't always jangle (in fact, hardly ever), but they had horns, and they had greats melodies, and they had great basslines, but most of all, as Tot Taylor wrote in 1989, they had charm. "Charm you cannot buy. Sometimes people with bad art have it, but it beats technique anyday and it is an indefinable and priceless asset. Compact had charm and that still shines on 'A Young Person's Guide To Compact'."

You can pick up the compilation on CD from LTM here. Or, should you happen to have lots of expendable money, an original copy of is up on ebay for $52. It's not the double LP that Compact released in 1983 originally, but seems to be the more concise single LP that was released that same year licensed by Ariola – which for some reason had a different colored cover, and, even more curiously – includes a total of ZERO Mari Wilson tracks, where four appeared on the initial Compact double LP. Did Germany have something against beehives?

[MP3]: Mari Wilson :: Beat the Beat

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