Various - Produced By Trevor Horn (ZTT)

We all know about Phil Spector’s ‘wall of sound’, to say nothing of Brian Wilson’s dreams of sound and even Pete Waterman’s mouth of sound. This box set makes the case for what Trevor Horn – now celebrating his 25th year of hits – has created. A “whole room of sound,” as Paul Morley once said, “the walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows, decorated with absolute flourish.”

The stats are compelling - 30 tracks, seven No. 1’s and a further 11 Top 10 hit singles spanning four decades. MOR work with the likes of Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart is omitted in favour of what the Pet Shop Boys (represented here with the disco-Debussy It’s Alright) would term ‘pop art’.

The best tracks are the experimental pop (Malcolm McLaren, Grace Jones, Propaganda) and the 80s classics (ABC, Godley & Creme). There are passable recent hits too, ranging from Lisa Stansfield to Shane MacGowan. tATu and Frankie are sonically the most impressive, and the album is worth collecting alone for a resplendent remaster of Buggles’s Video Killed The Radio Star.

So who escaped? There’s certainly enough material to make a volume two of this release. It would make room for the FGTH and Seal singles onerous in their absence and provide a platform for tracks from The Trevor Horn Orchestra and The Musical Cast of Toys, his soundtrack session teams from Toys and Mona Lisa.

Some of the one-off singles that collectors love are also missing. Not the hack jobs like Barry Manilow (Horn produced a Take That cash-in remake of Could It Be Magic) but the lush curios of Lomax, Betsy Cook and the sublime Inge. But to dwell on these omissions would be beside the point - this compilation is as overdue as it is essential.