Male beat groups ruled the mid-60s Merseyside roost but the area was also home to its fair share of female talent. To illustrate the point, here are 25 hand-picked girl-pop artefacts from the environs of Liverpool, including a bunch of scarce new-to-CD titles.

Over the last few years Ace has built up a series of prime British female pop collections, with individual releases drawn from four of the country’s leading record companies of the 1960s: Decca, Pye, EMI and, most recently, Philips. With this compilation, rather than focus on a particular imprint, the spotlight falls on artists from a certain geographical area.