Wow, as much as I do appreciate the Wedding Present, even I think 6xCD set is excessive.

Liz, I'm available for hugs if need be.

One of the great things about the Wedding Present is that they are completists. They make it easy for their fans to have access to their entire catalog -- rather than, like some snooty folks, print 500 elusive releases of a Brazil-only ep with a hidden track... which inevitably finds its way on ebay for $150. Then, those folks that love the band are forced to duke it out and use up their milk money just to get music from a band they love.

Nope, the Wedding Present put it all out there for everyone to grab up as they see fit -- whether it's a fantastic studio outtake or a video with David Gedge in shorts in the 1980's... the black market has nothing on Gedgie. Even back in the days of cassette tape bootleg tapes, he would release unedited tape recordings of TWP shows in cosmo European cities through their fanclub. They weren't $20 each either -- they were fairly inexpensive -- which made it easy to reason that you should just buy all of them.

So when TWP decides to release a 6-disc boxset of BBC sessions - it makes perfect sense -- especially when given that David and the late great John Peel were such chums and therefore there's bound to be some priceless recordings of their best songs (John Peel often cited TWP as one of his favorite groups and had David on as a cohost a number of times). The boxset documents TWP’s songs as much as the close relationship they developed.

Calling it 'unglamourus' is a disservice to the rich history that the BBC/Peel Sessions has built up on genuine enthusiasm for music and for the power of a brilliant song. And to call TWP unglamorous is the telltale sign of someone who can't enjoy a solid cup of black coffee. Sugar and cream is not a necessary ingredient of infectious indie-pop.

Furthermore, TWP built the foundation of uncompromising jangle guitar that britpop has grown so dependent on. I will also be so bold to say that, along with the Kinks, David Gedge perfected a style of lyrical relationship storytelling that taught the limeys climbing up ranks now what it feels like to have a heart broken via a song.

To dismiss this boxset as anything less than a fine idea is to say that the days of scouring Goldmine were a waste of time. Long live the completist and beautifully jangly guitars!

And yes I just updated my co.uk wishlist!

Well said!!!!

If The Wedding Present were such completists they'd give a proper DVD release to the *Punk and Dick York's Wardrobe videos, bad quality bits and pieces on YouTube are no substitute! A Wedding Present collector will already have most of these Peel sessions on CD (I'm thinking of the Strange Fruit "BBC Sessions" and "John Peel Sessions 1987-90" CDs as well as "John Peel Sessions 1992-1995" CD released by BBC Music). The Peel sessions that were previously unreleased were #2 (from late '86) and #7 from 1989 (from their Ukrainian phase). Three of the discs are live material. So am I going to have to buy this for the one session that I don't have? What would've been appreciated is a comprehensive set of all of their BBC sessions, because they've done quite a few non-Peel sessions and their very first one, for Andy Kershaw in 1985, I think remains unreleased except for a track that showed up on "Tommy."

I personally just want my 6 CD Ned's Atomic Dustbin Peel Session.