It is hard to resist the cheerful striving all over Titan: It’s All Pop! (Numero Group), a two-CD salute to a shoestring enterprise. Titan Records, an indie power-pop label in Kansas City, Missouri, released a sampler LP and a handful of singles at the turn of the Eighties, shelving as much as it put out. This set is pretty much Titan’s history in full, and the title is no lie. The quality of the next-Beatles and new-Raspberries aspirations of Gary Charlson, the Gems and Millionaire at Midnight (it’s a band) never dips, even if the fidelity isn’t quite Abbey Road.

[From Issue 1067 — December 11, 2008]

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• Fricke’s Picks: High-Speed Elegy