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 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.
Bang! – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Frankie Goes to Hollywood were supposed to be the eighties answer to the Beatles. As anyone from Liverpool will tell you, the Beatles put the city on the map. This is what is taught in schools in the Liverpool area.
In fact, I’ll go as far to say, give birth in a Liverpool hospital and you can be assured that the Beatles will be playing in the delivery room just so the wee one can be indoctrinated welcomed into the wonders of the four apostles John Paul George and Ringo.
At the time Frankie surfaced Liverpool was going through a bit of a down patch. Unemployment was high, people were avoiding the city and so was government policy. Then a bright spark, Trevor Horn no less, said “Hey, what Liverpool needs is some more pop music icons like the Beatles. Inject some culture into the place…”. And that’s what he did.
With lyrics screaming with homosexual overtones, shocking banned music videos and drug addled public appearances, Frankie put Liverpool back on the map briefly. Then fizzled away into a poor second album and an iffy solo career for lead singer Holly Johnson.
Bang! is Frankie’s best of album. This is the only Frankie album you need.
Baja Sessions – Chris Isaak
Chris Isaak returns to the project. This time with an unplugged session of some of his better songs and a few covers.
There seemed to have been a movement that passed me by around the mid-90s where bands all started chucking out acoustic and lo-fi versions of their work. I’m not complaining.
This is good stuff. If studio Isaak has you feeling like you should slick your hair back, look aloof and pained yet cool and thoughtful; Lo-fi Isaak will have you wanting to sit on a porch with your dudes and guitar while a stream of girls walk past giving you the eye. Just like they do to Chris.
Of course that’s as likely to happen as the Vatican winning the world cup.
Ayreonauts Only – Ayreon
We talked about Ayreon back at the start of this project. Ayreon is one of those European rock stars that wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Euro Rock bands of the late 1980’s like Poison or Europe.
Except he’s far too good for that.
This album acts as a kind of “I can do better than what I did before” Best of compilation album. A Betterer Of, for want of a better phrase.
If the chugga chugga guitar of Into the Black Hole doesn’t get you fired up, then perhaps Eyes of Time or Cold Metal will.
I love this album. Again, I have no idea why he’s not as well known in the UK as he is in Europe.
Auf Ewig – Joachim Witt
German pensioner Rocker Joachim Witt is one of those rock stars all the old rock stars want to emulate. Nonchalance, no guitar wanking or face contorting, just nonchalance and an air of cool that would make Bryan Ferry feel a bit of a knob head. Thats Joachim Witt.
I came across Witt a few years ago while looking for some Euro pop. Of course, he’s been around since before Elvis learnt about burgers being tasty, which is fairly good all things considered. I vaguely remember a couple of Witt tracks appearing in the tail end of the Top 40 way back when.
Auf Ewig is nothing to do with earwigs, it is the best of Witt. Which I always think is a bit like drawing a line across your work and saying anything that follows is not the best of. Anyway, this IS the best of. All in one album. Typically, there are a number of tracks that are good, and a number which I wish I’d never heard.
Accessories – The Gathering
This is the second album alphabetically that I have from The Gathering. It is one of those filler albums. The ones that bands or record labels release to maintain interest in their music between albums. Accessories is a compilation of live, rare and b side songs.
Songs from Mandylion like Strange Machines, Amity and In Motion are joined by covers of Dead Can Dance (In Power We Trust the Love Advocated) and instrumental and orchestral versions of other classic Gathering songs.
I suppose it is one of my favourite albums by the Gathering, purely because it showcases most of their better songs. Spread over two discs, the playtime runs to just over 2 hours 25 minutes and is a good introduction to the band if you couldn’t face A Noise Severe.
Stegzy's Music Project 