VARIOUS ARTISTS. ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK, CONSIDERED (early 1970s?): Travels in the time tunnel

Among the many good things about what Bob Seger called “old time rock and roll” is that you get more of it for less.

Like on this album which boasts “24 terrific rock'n'roll tracks” and cost just $5 secondhand. That's about 20 cents a song.

But this cobbled together collection for New Zealand's Music for Leisure Ltd is bizarre in what it considers rock'n'roll and thinks nothing of leaping around in time.

So following the Bill Haley title track (1954) and Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill (1956) we get Sam the Sham and the Pharaoh's' Woolly Bully and the Honeycombs' Have I the Right? (both from 1964).

Among the important songs from the early rock'n'roll era are the Bill Justis instrumental Raunchy (which the young Harrison played to Lennon and McCartney and secured him a place in the band), Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen (his celebration of rock'n'roll fans), Haley's version of Shake Rattle and Roll, Buddy Holly's That'll Be the Day and It Doesn't Matter Anymore, and the short-lived Mark Dinning with Teen Angel (sad story that one).

And Joey Dee and the Starlighters' Peppermint Twist.

But mixed among these classics from the Fifties are Ray Stevens' awful Ahab the Arab, Sandy Posey's sweetly bloodless Single Girl, the great Brenda Lee's I'm Sorry and Let's Jump the Broomstick, the Searchers' jangle on Sweets for my Sweet, Mark Winter's ballad Venus in Blue Jeans, the Crystals' Da Doo Ron Ron and others which don't really fit the remit of “rock'n'roll” established elsewhere.

Great songs many of them, but . . .

Pulled from the shelf at random, this mishmash of beats, ballads, doowop (the Platters' Great Pretender) and Jerry Lee Lewis doing Don't Be Cruel is still a lot of haphazard fun and doubtless Record Rendezvous in Takapuna – this has their sticker on the back -- sold a few.

But probably not at $5, which seems about the right price.

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Albums considered in this on-going page of essays are pulled from the shelves at random, so we can get the good, the bad or the indifferent from major artists to cult acts and sometimes perverse oddities.