The Best of Sade – Sade
Sleezy lounge smooth jazz, soul music with extra sleeze and flashbacks to Absolute Beginners. I’m not especially a Sade fan. I can only name about 3 songs by her (all of which appear on this album) but if you want to relive the British Soul movement of the mid-1980s then shove this album on your iTunes.
She’s still about doing stuff you know…
The Best of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
I could tell you my anecdote about wild cocaine fuelled sex parties. Or I could tell you about gay orgies on the Wirral. Or I could even tell you about a night in 2005 and how it relates to this album. But I won’t. Purely because to do so might end up with me in court.
Anyway, OMD. This compilation has all of their hits. Shame that they had to blow all that fame on dodgy girl bands. I mean really…..
The Best of Jon & Vangelis – Jon & Vangelis
Two titans of prog meet and out prog themselves with prog in a very pro-prog kind of way. Jon Anderson of Yes joins forces with Vangelis of Aphrodites Child to forge an unholy progressive rock alliance bringing the auditory senses an extra dose of twee, sax and plinky plonky synth.
I used to really like this album when I was younger. I had it on CD, then on tape and just to be format friendly, nicked it off the internet. I think by the third time I had obtained this album, I’d already overspent.
Sure, its a good album if you’re a fan. But it’s certainly a product of the time. Just too twee. You half expect to sprout a kaftan and start waving a smudge stick about the place while sticking up Roger Dean posters everywhere just by listening to it.
Great if you like Greek blokes with beards and mop haired guys from Altrincham with inexplicable American accents.
The Best of James Bond 30th Anniversary Collection Various Artists
Bit of a cop out this one. Not a single song is by James Bond. It’s all Shirley Bassey, Rita Coolidge and some bloke called John Barry.
Seriously though, this is a nice little pre-Brosnan snapshot of the best theme songs and tunes from the James Bond franchise. A popular quiz I used to run at school and in Birch House was a “Name the Artist” quiz based on the performers of these James Bond themes. Of course, since those days we’ve had a couple of new Bonds. Fortunately the horrid Madonna theme arrived too late for this celebratory compilation. But never the less, the songs on this album do still stir up memories of Bank Holiday Mondays, Christmases and Easters from my childhood. Mostly because there was nothing else on during those times.
The Best of Gothic Rock- Various Artists
Only it’s not.
It’s not what I’d class as “Gothic” anyway. At least with my modern more refined ears. Instead I would call these two compilations “The Best of Big Boobed Operatic Singers Accompanying Euro Goth Metal Bands” .
Both albums contain a nice introduction to bands such as Nightwish, Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil. Ideal music for a middle aged wanna be goth to indulge in, reinvent themselves and annoy the wife with.
As we will see, these albums had a profound influence on my own musical tastes and we will be seeing a few of the bands featured, multiple times over the course of this project.
Track listing as follows:
Volume 2 =
1. Within Temptation – Mother Earth
2. Nightwish – Bless The Child
3. Beseech – Illusionate
4. Trail of Tears – Liquid View
5. Lacuna Coil – Swamped
6. Therion – Ljusalfheim
7. Myriads – The Sanctum Of My Soul
8. Flowing Tears – Serpentine
9. Within Temptation – Deceiver of Fools
10. Moonspell – Nocturna
11. Sentenced – Guilt and Regret
12. Divercia – Everlasting
13. After Forever – Monolith of Doubt
14. Tristinia – Tender Trip on Earth
15. Sirenia – Sister Nightfall
Volume 3 =
1 The Rasmus – In the Shadows 4:16
2 Within Temptation – Running Up That Hill 3:57
3 Epica – The Phantom Agony 9:00
4 Nightwish – End of All Hope 3:54
5 After Forever – Intrinsick 6:52
6 Tristania – A Sequel of Decay 6:31
7 Apocalyptica feat Nina Hagen – Seemann 4:00
8 Tarot – Pyre of Gods 4:34
9 Sonata Arctica – Victoria’s Secret 4:43
10 Sirenia – At Sixes and Sevens 6:44
11 Therion – Enter Vril-Ya 6:37
12 Penumbra – The Last Bewitchment 5:10
13 My Dying Bride – My Hope, My Destroyer 6:47
14 Autumn – Along Ethereal Levels 4:05
The Best of Focus: Hocus Pocus – Focus
I would have made a cheap joke about the failed UK based DIY chain but I’m afraid it would have been lost on non-Brits and those under 25. Still, you can do it yourself if you want to.
Focus are one of those eclectic bands that become timeless. Frequently wheeled out to show off the zany 1970 and how wild those times where. Neatly framed to screen off three day weeks, power cuts and winters of discontent.
Still no compilation of Focus music could lack the classics Hocus Pocus and House of the King. If either Jethro Tull or this album don’t make you want to wield a flute as your rock instrument of choice then you have no hope.
The Best of – Era
No. I’d never heard of them either. It seems that I must have liked one of their songs and downloaded all of their music in the hope of finding something original.
This is like a poor man’s Enigma. Lots of Gregorian Chants (Popular in the 1990s) and new age fiddle faddle. The kind of music you might hear in one of those shops that sell floaty vaginas, tofu knitting kits and yogurt weaving tools.
The Best of Electric Light Orchestra
Jeff Lynne and his beard again and yet another “Best of” compilation for the band. It seems to me that all ELO did was release regular “Best of” albums.
Of course I know that’s not entirely accurate.
This “Best of” as compared to the other “Best of” is clearly a best of best ofs. Some of best of tunes from ELO’s best of albums feature here including:
Livin’ Thing (from many of the best of compilations)
Mr Blue Sky (from all of the best of compilations)
and
Standin’ in The Rain (a first on their Best of compilations)
Perhaps that’s what they’re best at? Making Best ofs. Meh.
The Best of Depeche Mode Covers – Various Artists
And so we arrive at the first of many downloaded “amatuer compilations”. The Best of Depeche Mode Covers appeared on Usenet sometime in 2012 just toward the end of my access to fast broadband.
It appears that there are many cover versions of Depeche Mode songs. From Rammstein all the way through to Nina Hagen, the bands that have at some point been influenced by DM have paid tribute by recording a cover version.
This particular compilation is a fan based one and, and I’ve always wanted to say this, is not available in the shops. However, I’ll pop the track list here so you can maybe try compiling it yourself.
1 Personal Jesus – Marilyn Manson
2 I Feel You – Placebo
3 Stripped – Rammstein
4 Enjoy the Silence – Tori Amos
5 Master and Servant – Nouvelle Vague
6 Shake The Disease – Hooverphonic
7 Dream On – Scala & Kolacny Brothers
8 I Just Cant Get Enough – Nouvelle Vague
9 Policy of Truth – Automob
10 Black Celebration – Galaxy Hunter
11 It’s No Good – Orphans Of Infamy
12 Behind the wheel – Topazz
13 It’s No Good – Saga Nordanstahl
14 Behind The Wheel – Pain
15 Shake the Disease – Odyssey
16 Personal Jesus – Nina Hagen
17 Freelove – Blank & Jones
18 Enjoy The Silence – Scala And Kolacny Brothers
19 See You – Flunk
20 Precious – Anam (Feat. Mary F)
The Best of Depeche Mode Volume 1 – Depeche Mode
Worked a guy once who said that the greatest band in the world ever was Depeche Mode. Of course I mocked him.
A couple of years later after we had lost contact and I had changed jobs, I realised he was right. They’re so diverse. From plinky plonky synth shite in the early 80s to sophisticated synth ballads and remixes. DM are as multitalented as a room full of mature student graduates.
There are songs on this compilation that everyone over the age of 25 will remember and the urge to resist a bit of air drumming is hard.
Best of – Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak’s claim to fame is that he spat on me during a performance at the Royal Court in Liverpool in the 1990s. I forgave him, of course, purely because he was unaware I was there to be frank.
Anyway, this compilation brings together all Isaak’s best songs about broken relationships up to about 2003ish. It’s a good compilation.
Isaak has, of late, gone down the route of other songsmiths of similar calibre, focussing on the songs of those that came before them. While this is a good move on a creative scale, I worry that all originality might start to suffer. Like it did with Bryan Ferry. Still, while you can still listen to his better tunes on a Best of compilation, I don’t think we have to worry too much.
The Best of 1990 – 2000 – U2
At some point between 1990 and 1995 someone once suggested to me that I should like U2. Fact is, I couldn’t stand them.
Bono is a knob, this is a universal constant, but Adam Clayton sounds like someone who should be an estate agent and anyone that calls themselves “The Edge” is obviously trying to emulate someone calling themselves “The Cool” or “The Hipster”. With the same effect.
For some reason this compilation is in my collection. I can’t stand U2. There are one or two songs I tolerate but they’re not on this compilation. They’re nothing special. People used to say how U2 were the sound of Northern Ireland and how they spoke about the troubles through their music. Perhaps they did. Perhaps having grown up during that time, the songs I tolerate still resonate with me. But, please, someone needs to stick a sock in Bono’s mouth.
And a pillow case over his head.
In my mind, the gritty Northern Ireland sound was produced to a better standard by Mike Scott and his Waterboys. Unfortunately, while the Waterboys later went down the Folky God Bothering Environmentalist Rout, U2 went down the “We’re the best so get used to it” Self Opinionated Bollocksfest Route.
The Best of & The Rest of British Psychedelia – Various Artists
It was obvious from the out set that the compiler of this compilation thinks that psychedelia has to either sound like Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks or like it should be played in some new town like Reading or Milton Keynes with lots of young people expressing themselves through dress and dance.
It seems also that to pass as psychedelia, both the lyrics and the band name has to be slightly odd and quirky. This compilation has the following:
1 Morning Morgan Town – Jude
2 Keep Hold of What You’ve Got – The Shots
3 Shirley – Cliff Wade
4 House of Many Windows – Motherlight (sounds a bit like Genesis meets Marillion)
5 Peru – Chimera (Should be a theme tune for some Youthwave devil worship film from 1970, possibly starring Beryl Reid)
6 Saga of a Wrinkled Man – Fortes Mentum
7 Baby You’ve Gotta Stay – Angel Pavement
(Track 8 is Missing)
9 Laura’s Garden – Orange Bicycle
10 It Never Stays The Same – Bob Grimm
11 All Of My Life – Pussy
12 Green Mello Hill – Magic Worms
13 Leilla – Chiitra Neogy
14 Look At Me I’ve Fallen Into A Teapot – Cliff Wade
Never heard of any of them. Nice as non-distracting background music…
Best of – Radiohead
I came late to the Radiohead party. I think my invite was lost in the post. The buffet had been demolished, the DJ was playing the slowies and desperate singletons sat sobbing at their ability to scare off any potential mate. Probably a good thing really.
There are a number of Radiohead tracks that I like, but I think by the time I had got into Radiohead, the days of listening to albums in their entirety had long passed.
So, in an effort to discover more hidden gems, I obtained a copy of their Best of . All but one of my favourite Radiohead songs appear in this compilation. That one would be released on a much later album. But this album/compilation is a good showcase. Not my cup of tea mind. But enough to convince me that I need not worry about obtaining their back catalogue.
Best of – The Offspring
Some time in the late nineties and early noughties, I must have liked this band for some reason. This is clear from how I appear to have quite a lot of their albums. I’m buggered if I can remember what the song I liked was though.
Or why.
The Best of has a slightly familiar song but I’m not sure if that is the one I like. It is possible that this is a band that the ex-wife liked or it is possible that someone asked me to get it for them. Either way, I don’t like it.
Best of – Nouvelle Vague
Sexy twee core covers of popular songs by those Frenchies.
Nice for those moments when seductive versions of popular songs are an absolute must.
I don’t know what it is about Nouvelle Vague. They always make me feel sleezy and unclean. Like I should be walking around semi dressed listening to them in my old town French apartment overlooking a market square, smoking Gitanes and looking moody while a sultry dark haired French type wearing one of my shirts and nothing much else drapes herself seductively over the furniture.
The Best of – The Beach Boys
Don’t know how this got into my collection.
I have a snooty contempt for the Beach Boys. Sure they’re a product of their time. That hazy clean living pseudo-America that only seemed to have happened in films or imaginations. But to me they have sinister overtones. That might just be me though.
There’s just something a little creepy about some of their songs. It makes me think of some tripped up psycho-hippie carving up bodies.I’m sure psychologists in the future will debate that statement for many years.
The Best Indie Anthems – Various Artists
This compilation starts off well. Opening with Radiohead’s High and Dry, Catatonia’s Road Rage and the odd gem from atypical nineties/noughties inde bands.
But then about the twentieth track, it appears that the compiler has given up and opted just to put twenty songs that happened to be on the radio as he or she was compiling the album. The theme to the box office flop Lost in Space for example. Hardly indie.
It’s like when you go into a pub and ask for a pint of real ale. The landlord or barman fetches you a pint of something like Greene King or something from Shepherds Neame or Adnams. Yes, way back in the dusty mists of time when our pubs had mainstream beers like Tetley, John Smiths and Trophy, such treats might have seemed like real ale. But in today’s environment this is not the case. Greene King et al are now just as bad as the Tetleys and Scottish Newcastles of the day.
Indeed such logic can be applied to the Indie genre of music. The majority of artists that try to pass themselves off as Indie are as mainstream as Sony and Virgin Records and have no true claim to the indie crown. Blur for example. They’re so mainstream they’re akin to the M1.
Shame really. I had high hopes for this album.
The Best Damn Thing – Avril Lavigne
Those that know me know about my problems with Ms Lavigne.
It has been widely documented (elsewhere) that Ms Lavigne has, for some time now, been communicating with me via the medium of song. From Skater Boi (about me and her) to Complicated (also about her and me), Avril Lavigne has seeded her songs with coded messages about her infatuation with me.
Indeed, it was only when a friend told me about her song Girlfriend that I became even more convinced. This is clearly a coded message aimed at me from Ms Lavigne and the only reason why I have any of her albums in my collection. Especially this one. The Best Damn Thing is a direct communication from her aimed at changes in my own life and her unwillingness to accept her attention is unrequited.
My legal team have been working on the issue for sometime. I am awaiting a restraining order.
The Best Anthems in the World…Ever – Various Artists
This compilation does for Indie and the noughties what The Best Air Guitar Album in the World did for rock. Here we find songs and bands from the late nineties and early noughties which became the soundtrack to New Labour Britain.
Some of the artists, Chumbawumba for example, are one hit wonders while others such as Blur and Reef stride the boundaries of indie and rock like Duran Duran and Simple Minds connect us to the eighties.
However, after the first 10 songs or so we enter into forgettable tracks. It’s almost as if the compiler has struggled to fill the 41 track compilation with similarly rememberable songsmiths. Still, it’s good car music, for those long journeys where arguments over what should be played are rife.
The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever – Various Artists
This is every Dad’s favourite compilation from the nineties and noughties. Glove boxes throughout the UK had a copy of this album in it and jukeboxes in dodgy pubs were required by law to have this album also.
As much a part of pre-MP3 music culture as Tubular Bells, Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds and other coffee table albums, The Best Air Guitar Album in the World…Ever is one of those compilations that seem to be in every collection. It’s not hard to see why. All the traditionally popular bands are here; Queen, Def Leppard, Skynyrd and Blur but there are also bands and songs that are missing – Stiltskin’s Inside and Mountain’s Nantucket Sleighride for example, surely two of the most prolific air guitar riffs ever? Also there are some bands whose inclusion seems to only be to hook the younger generation in, Blur and Robbie Williams for example.
Still as compilations go, this is one of the better more agreeable ones.
We now enter into the muggy world of “Best of” albums. For the next 29 days we will be delving into the mindset of the fan, the music producer and the bands that are too lazy to chuck out another studio album so cobble together a few popular songs on one album as a retention marketing exercise.
Best ofs are an excellent way to become familiar with a genre or an artist’s work. Quite often, when trying to get an idea of what an artist sounded like, I would get their “Best of” and used them to make a judgement on whether or not I obtained their other albums.
As I said, this works well with genres too, so you will see a number of genre focussed best ofs over the next few days. I intend on adding the tracklisting of genre focussed best ofs as quite often these reflect the compiler’s taste rather than being an accurate reflection of the actual genre. Plus I find this kind of thing interesting.
Berlin – Barclay James Harvest
This album is a live concert that I downloaded purely as an attempt to see what other Barclay James Harvest songs sounded like.
Having had Mockingbird regularly played to me by the crusty old DJs of BBC Radio 2 and also finding it featured on disk 2 of The Best Prog Rock Album in the World… Ever! I thought it was an omen.
Wrong.
Barclay James Harvest, like so many other bands that feature in this music project, only really had one hit and one song that was any good. For Barclay James Harvest, that song is Mockingbird.
Ben Folds Five – Ben Folds Five
I was never part of the whole Ben Folds hipster movement. There was a time when all those people who had a modicum of coolness seemed to be enamoured with Mr Folds and his musical buddies. I could never really see why.
Later in life, Mr Folds worked with the distinguished Mr Shatner and I forgave his impertinence but still to this day, I have no idea what the fuss about Mr Folds is. Dateable piano rock from the mid nineties.
Beltaine – Jennifer van der Harten
Jennifer van der Harten is the cute hurdy gurdy playing harpist from Omnia.
Here she plucks and sings her way through several traditional folk tunes on the harp with the same grace and haunting of Ordo Equitum Solis but without the dark creepiness.
This appears to be van der Harten’s first foray into solo work and it makes an excellent aural accompaniment to any day filled with peace, joss sticks and dyed voile curtains.
Stegzy's Music Project 