Club Reggae '69 - Various Artists

In 1969, the bold new sound of reggae hit Britain like a shockwave, challenging the music establishment and rewriting the rules of popular taste. Dismissed by mainstream critics as repetitive and unsophisticated, this electrifying music from Jamaica struck an immediate chord with young working class record buyers, for whom the increasingly psychedelic excesses of prog rock held little appeal.

By the end of the year, a wave of reggae singles had stormed the national charts despite virtually no support from the UK’s only nationwide radio, the BBC, and the fact that sales from specialist record shops across the country were routinely overlooked by chart compilers.

This essential 3CD collection brings together over 80 tracks from the late 1960s, spanning major breakthrough hits, dancefloor favourites and long-lost obscurities, many unavailable since their original release nearly 60 years ago.

Compiled by people who lived it first hand, these are the records that offered Britain’s working-class youth a vivid alternative to the increasingly self-indulgent rock favoured by the middle classes and the mainstream media; raw, immediate and impossible to ignore.