HE may be our fourth richest citizen, but Richard Branson’s business roots were humble. His first venture, at the age of 16, was the Student magazine, followed by a discount record store.

Branson’s shop made enough money to launch the revolutionary Virgin Records, whose first release was Mike Oldfield’s chart-topping Tubular Bells.

The rest is history. And that fascinating history, spanning four decades, is charted splendidly in this 15 CD anthology beginning, as you would expect, with Oldfield and concluding with last year’s See Right Through by Tensnake.

This admirably demonstrates the sheer breadth of material offered by Virgin over the years. Partly that is down to Branson’s approach, which has always been more Freddie Laker than corporate magnate, perhaps fittingly for an airline magnate. Not quite cavalier but definitely nose-thumbing at the Tin Pan establishment.

There are countless examples of this, the most famous of which was Branson signing the Sex Pistols, below, at a time when nobody in the industry would touch the band with a six-foot bargepole.

Virgin also introduced the avant-garde with Faust and Can, along with assorted Steve Hillage-esque hipppies. They may seem strange bedfellows, but that was the point. Virgin was a pioneering label for musos; boundaries were left to the likes of EMI and Polydor.

Indeed, who else would have signed Penetration, The Ruts or The Skids? None conformed to the stereotypes of their time, but they made damned good music.

And that was all that matttered; substance over style has always been the watchword.

This collection is divided into five epochs and opinions over which is best will be largely divided by the listener’s age. That said, each showcases Virgin’s desire to offer wider appeal to acts that most labels would avoid, and one of the most interesting things here is to spot how many bands you didn’t realise had signed to Virgin, from PIL and Magazine, to Cabaret Voltaire and Massive Attack.

All music lovers owe Richard Branson a debt of gratitude, because from the maverick to the bizarre, he invested rare faith in an artist’s ability to grow under the stewardship of a record label.

The Virgin Group may comprise 400 companies these days, but as this astonishing collection shows, the first is, and was, by far the best.