Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

Released: 1990
Tracks: [Disc 1] Running Free; Burning Ambition; Sanctuary; Drifter (live); I’ve Got the Fire (live); [Disc 2] Women in Uniform; Invasion; Phantom of the Opera (live); Twilight Zone; Wrathchild; [Disc 3] Purgatory; Genghis Khan; Running Free (live); Remember Tomorrow (live); Killers (live); Innocent Exile (live); [Disc 4] Run to the Hills; Total Eclipse; The Number of the Beast; Remember Tomorrow (live); [Disc 5] Flight of Icarus; I’ve Got the Fire; The Trooper; Cross-Eyed Mary; [Disc 6] 2 Minutes to Midnight; Rainbow’s Gold; Mission From ‘Arry; Aces High; King of Twilight; The Number of the Beast (live); [Disc 7] Running Free (live); Sanctuary (live); Murders in the Rue Morgue (live); Run to the Hills (live); Phantom of the Opera (live); Losfer Words (Big ‘Orra) (live); [Disc 8] Wasted Years; Reach Out; Sheriff of Huddersfield; Stranger in a Strange Land; That Girl; Juanita [Disc 9] Can I Play With Madness; Black Bart Blues; Massacre; The Evil That Men Do; Prowler ’88; Charlotte the Harlot ’88; [Disc 10] The Clairvoyant (live); The Prisoner (live); Heaven Can Wait (live); Infinite Dreams (live); Killers (live); Still Live (live)
Best tracks: [Disc 1] I’ve Got the Fire [Disc2] Phantom of the Opera (live) [Disc 3] Genghis Khan [Disc 4] Total Eclipse [Disc 5] The Trooper [Disc 6] 2 Minutes to Midnight [Disc 7] Sanctuary (live) [Disc 8] Wasted Years [Disc 9] The Evil That Men Do [Disc 10] The Clairvoyant/The Prisoner/Killers
Track to skip: let’s be consistent and skip Can I Play with Madness

The packaging of this box is really nice, with cool new artwork and a booklet with the history of the band.  Well, I assume it is as it’s in Japanese and I can’t read it!  The discs themselves have full artwork for all 20 singles with (sometimes incorrect) lyrics in Japanese and English.  Very cool.  Let’s dig into these!

Read more »

Released: 1969
Tracks: Yellow Submarine; Only a Northern Song; All Together Now; Hey Bulldog; It’s All Too Much; All You Need is Love; Pepperland; Sea of Time; Sea of Holes; Sea of Monsters; March of the Meanies; Pepperland Laid Waste; Yellow Submarine in Pepperland
Best track: It’s All Too Much
Track to skip: none

It took me years to finally buy the original issue of this album, with the orchestral film score.  Of course I’d heard the pieces in the film itself, but it was a cool experience to hear this music for the first time on disc.  I admit it, I quite like the orchestral music here (mostly written by George Martin).  Am I the only one?  Maybe.  The pieces that stood out to me most on this “side two” were Sea of Time (yay for incorporating the Indian influence!) and Sea of Monsters (love how it just goes all over the place compositionally).  The reprisal of the theme in Yellow Submarine in Pepperland is a nice touch and I like hearing what George Martin did with this otherwise familiar song.

All that said…I don’t think the inclusion of the orchestral tracks really works here, not as a continuous “album” at least.  It’s just so different from songs like Only a Northern Song (love the mono mix on there!  Holy crap is that cool) and It’s All Too Much.  Obviously there was a record flip on the original issue of this, but it’s still too different to really work cohesively.  I mean, that’s a minor complaint because The Beatles really didn’t have much to do with this album anyway.  The four new tracks were all extra songs that didn’t make the cut on Sgt. Pepper’s, Magical Mystery Tour & The White Album.  Maybe All Together Now was specifically written for this film?  If it was, it shows you how much the band really cared about it.

I’ve been listening to the remixed “Songtrack” version of this album for about 10 years now, so I’m definitely more familiar with those new mixes.  It’s certainly good, but I think I prefer the original mixes of these four new songs.  Yes, All Together Now is quite silly, but it’s fine.  I really like Northern Song, Hey Bulldog and especially It’s All Too Much.  I think that’s my favorite on the album, made even better with the remastered original mix.  So I don’t have a problem of the quality of the new songs, I definitely like them.  I’m not as down on this album as so many people seem to be.  It’s not supposed to be a REAL Beatles album, it’s just background music from the move with some unreleased tracks and two favorites that you can’t go wrong with.  The combination of these elements doesn’t really work, but…who cares.  It’s a fun, non-serious Beatles album and I enjoy having it in my collection.

Rating: 83

Released: 1988
Tracks: Moonchild; Infinite Dreams; Can I Play With Madness; The Evil That Men Do; Seventh Son of a Seventh Son; The Prophecy; The Clairvoyant; Only the Good Die Young
Best track: The Clairvoyant
Track to skip: Can I Play With Madness (yuck)

I feel better now.

Man, 1988 was such a great year for metal.  Metallica’s …And Justice for All, Living Colour’s Vivid, Queensrÿche’s Operation: Mindcrime and this.  So many others as well, but these are at the top of the mountain.  Except for the dreck mentioned above, this album is stellar and knocks me on my ass every time I put it on.  Honestly, if it wasn’t for Madness, I think this album would be equal to Somewhere in Time.  As it is, it’s a hair under.  Like Mindcrime, this is a concept album.  A very ambitious concept album.  Maiden always had their progressive leanings, but they threw it out there in full force here and produced such a detailed and complex work that it’s very nearly the greatest thing they ever did.  If you’re paying attention, that means this album is very nearly the greatest thing EVAR.  At least as far as I’m concerned.  Still, even *with* Can I Play With Madness intact, the album still manages to be such an incredible piece of work.  That’s how strong it is, how powerful the playing is, how strong the songwriting is.

The Clairvoyant still is and always will be the best song on this album.  That transition from the acoustic guitar at the end of The Prophecy into the gorgeous bass at the beginning of The Clairvoyant is my favorite thing in their whole catalog.  If you’re an avid reader, you’ll already know that The Clairvoyant (specifically that intro) is the sole reason I’m a musician.  Those 8 seconds changed my life.  I’ve listened to that song literally probably a million times and it NEVER fails to fill me with that same sense of…everything.  Pick an adjective; that’s it.  It’s truly a brilliant song and somewhere along the way it took the position as my all-time favorite song from Revelations.  So, yes, OF COURSE it’s the best one on Seventh Son.  It’s one of the few songs that only gets one guitar solo and Dave Murray makes the most of it.  It’s definitely one of his best solos.  I also can’t say enough about Steve Harris’ work on this song…just utterly perfect.  Honestly, all over this entire album he’s just on fire.  I think the challenge of making a proggy concept album really pulled at the core of his musicianship.  He rose to the challenge in such a huge way that it’s impossible not to be in awe of what he does here.

For instance, take the title track.  The main song portion is great…but…then we get to the ending instrumental bit.  It’s one of his greatest compositional achievements.  The melodies and the solos and the entire construction of it simply brilliant.  It’s art, pure and simple.  Then check out his compositional chops on Infinite Dreams, probably the second best song in total on the album.  Another beautiful song with great lyrics and superb musicianship.  Dave Murray on this especially – you can really hear his Hendrix influence here.  Bruce Dickinson is the absolute master of rock vocals and he turns in an excellent performance, esp. in his nailing-it-on-the-first-take stab at Moonchild.  So what about Nicko and Adrian?  Too many excellent moments.  I always go back to their work on the title track, though.  Just stellar.  Or Adrian’s playing in The Evil That Men Do.  Everything they do here is great; just absolutely fantastically great.

I said it earlier, this album is awesome.  It’s certainly one of the best metal albums of all time and to be truthful, Maiden’s second-best work.  Yes, it’s better than Number of the Beast and Powerslave.  It’s that good.  A truly amazing piece of work.

Rating: 98

Released: 1969
Tracks: Come Together; Something; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer; Oh! Darling; Octopus’s Garden; I Want You (She’s So Heavy); Here Comes the Sun; Because; You Never Give Me Your Money; Sun King; Mean Mr. Mustard; Polythene Pam; She Came in Through the Bathroom Window; Golden Slumbers; Carry That Weight; The End; Her Majesty
Best track: Something or Here Comes the Sun
Track to skip: none

All five of them (that includes George Martin) really outdid themselves here.  They nailed it; went out on top.

In talking about the music, there’s no better place to start than track 1, Come Together.  This song has such a great groove.  Who knew they could groove like this?  Starting on this song and continuing through the whole album, I was constantly struck how great of a presence Paul McCartney’s bass is here.  All the way through, he’s just a monster.  His work on other albums, particularly Rubber Soul, is outstanding, but on Abbey Road he’s an absolute monster.  Grooving songs, loud songs, quiet songs…he’s everywhere.  You know, as great as the Lennon/McCartney songs are on here, George Harrison steals the show song-writing wise.  Something and Here Comes the Sun are definitely the best songs of the bunch.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my favorite tracks on my two favorite Beatles albums are written by Harrison, who’s definitely my “favorite Beatle”.  Something is the band’s best love song, hands down.  It’s a supremely beautiful song.  I wonder how many “first dances” were done to this song in the past 40 years?  It’s sweet without being cheesy.  I think it’s genuinely emotional and cuts through everything for me.  Absolutely fantastic.  Here Comes the Sun once again shows how far Harrison’s songwriting came in 6 years.  It never fails to put a big smile on my face.  The sound on this song is just gorgeous.  You can practically feel the sunshine.

George also gets some tasty guitar playing in on Ringo’s Octopus’s Garden.  This is actually my favorite “Ringo” tune, of the two he wrote and of all the rest he sang.  It’s such a fun song.  I love the “underwater” background vocals!  Maxwell’s Silver Hammer > Oh! Darling > Octopus’s Garden all provide a nice bit of levity before getting into the obsessed heaviness of I Want You (She’s So Heavy).  Another great groove on this one, not to mention more excellent bass from McCartney.  It’s the perfect way to end the first half of this album

Side two starts off with the aforementioned Here Comes the Sun before we get bombarded by Because.  This song sounds so effortless…it’s just sickeningly good.  The rest of the album is taken up with The Suite.  It’s a brilliant way to work together these 8 songs.  Quite a few aren’t fully developed, but they got around that by joining them all together.  Simply a brilliant move and in an era where we were starting to get “concept albums” and “rock operas”, this still wins.  The songs are all good in themselves, but joined together they become this 16+ minute extravaganza of greatness.  The Beatles compositional ability really shines through here.  I have to give special mention to Polythene Pam – I love the drums and background vocals on this!  It’s definitely one of the cooler songs Lennon wrote.

Abbey Road is definitely the best sounding Beatles album.  Without a doubt.  The production & engineering here (and of course, the playing/singing) are unequalled in their catalog.  Since Let it Be was recorded prior to this, I consider Abbey Road their final statement to the world.  In a year full of tremendous and amazing music, this is the best one.  Hell, it’s the best album of the 60’s, by anybody.  What a way to close it all out.

Rating: 98

Released: 1973
Tracks: The Song Remains the Same; The Rain Song; Over the Hills and Far Away; The Crunge; Dancing Days; D’yer Mak’er; No Quarter; The Ocean
Best track: The Rain Song
Track to skip: D’yer Mak’er

One of the problems when you have albums as eclectic as this, is that some of the song transitions are just jarring.  Song Remains > Rain Song is one of these.  Now, I LOOOOOVE The Rain Song, but there’s not proper flow from track 1 to track 2.  I’ll get over it.  The Rain Song is gorgeous and one of my favorite Led Zep songs without a doubt.  It’s such a well-composed piece of music.  From the perfect acoustic guitar layering to the spot-on & stunning introductions of the mellotron and bass guitar, and yes, even extending to the lyrics here, it’s just a brilliant song.  Over the Hills and Far Away is another classic song and then there’s the James Brown Funk of The Crunge to end Side 1.  This might be the first instance of the band being truly goofy on record.  The song is decent, but it at least manages to make me crack a smile.  It’s kind of a throw-away, but it at least shows that the band could tackle funk, even if it’s a shade whiter than what James Brown offered up.

Side 2 doesn’t flow any better than Side 1, but that’s expected.  I absolutely DESPISE D’yer Mak’er.  I hate it.  I’m not alone in this either, as John Paul Jones has expressed his distaste for it as well.  I’m in good company!  An interesting take on reggae before too many people really knew what it was, but it still sucks as a song.  By far, the worst Led Zeppelin song they ever wrote.  I can’t figure out why people like it so much.  I really don’t care if it’s stupidly fun (it isn’t), it’s simply a horrible song.  So, yeah, there’s that MAJOR misstep, but the rest of Side 2 is good.  Dancing Days is fun as hell, No Quarter is possibly the trippiest thing they ever wrote and features some really cool piano from John Paul Jones.  No Quarter is a very cool song.  Houses of the Holy closes with an absolute classic in The Ocean.  I love how you can hear a studio phone ringing very slightly during Jimmy Page’s guitar solo here.  The change in this song where they go into the walking bassline with guitar solo is just awesome.  What a cool way to end the song and the album.

What to make of an album that features Led Zep’s worst and possibly best songs, is completely without flow and doesn’t quite feel like they really put a lot of effort into it?  OK, the effort’s there, but it’s lazy when you compare it to the previous 4 albums.  To be honest, I don’t listen to this as an “album” very often.  I love the songs (except one…), but I don’t love the album as a whole.  I just can’t get rid of the thought that there’s a certain degree of laziness here.

Rating: 86

Released: 1991
Tracks: [Disc 1 – 1969-1971] 21st Century Schizoid Man; I Talk to the Wind; Epitaph; Moonchild (edit); In the Court of the Crimson King; Peace – A Theme; Cat Food (single edit); Groon; Cadence and Cascade (remix); The Sailor’s Tale (abridged); Ladies of the Road; Bolero (remix); [Disc 2 – 1972-1974] Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: Part One (abridged); Book of Saturday; Easy Money; Lark’s Tongues in Aspic: Part Two; The Night Watch; The Great Deceiver; Fracture (abridged); Starless (abridged); Red; Fallen Angel; One More Red Nightmare; [Disc 3 – 1981-1984] Elephant Talk; Frame By Frame; Matte Kudesai; Thela Hun Ginjeet; Heartbeat; Waiting Man; Neurotica; Requiem; Three of a Perfect Pair; Sleepless; Discipline; The Sheltering Sky; The King Crimson Barber Shop; [Disc 4 – Live 1969-1984] Get Thy Bearings (1969); Travel Weary Capricorn (1969); Mars (1969); The Talking Drum (1973); 21st Century Schizoid Man (1973); Asbury Park (1974); Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: Part Three (excerpt) (1984); Sartori in Tangiers (1984) Indiscipline (1982)
Best track: [Disc 1] Epitaph [Disc 2] too hard to pick one [Disc 3] Frame By Frame [Disc 4] The Talking Drum
Tracks to skip: [Disc 1] none [Disc 2] none [Disc 3] Requiem [Disc 4] Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: Part Three

Disc 1 features 67 minutes that highlight the early incarnations of the band, from 1969-1971.  Nearly the entirety of the debut album is here; only a (thankfully) shortened version of Moonchild is different.  It’s very nice to hear the tune without the plodding improvisation that follows on the album proper.  The other three albums that this time period covers are In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard and Islands.  With half of this disc focusing on only 1 album, the other three tend to get shafted.  In my opinion, anyway.  Poseidon has 3 tracks, which is good, but I would have loved to hear Pictures of a City or the title cut on here.  Peace – A Theme is the same version, but then there’s also the inclusion of the single edit of Cat Food (along with its B-side, Groon…seeing its first CD release) and a remixed version of Cadence and Cascade.  Due to legal problems with former member Gordon Haskell, his contributions on here were replaced.  On Cadence and Cascade Adrian Belew does a wonderful job with the vocals and Tony Levin replaced Haskell’s bass on Bolero.  Bolero is the only track from 1971’s Lizard.  It works in its place on this disc, but having 1 track from Lizard really sells it short.  Lizard’s a difficult listen, sure, but the material is still good.  I have to say, I have no problem with Haskell being replaced, esp. vocally.  Belew sings Cadence MUCH better than Haskell did.  Sailor’s Tale and Ladies of the Road represent the Islands album here and they’re definitely the best tracks from that album.

To be honest, I think Fripp did a good job on this first disc.  Of course there are some songs missing, but for the most part it really represents the essential songs from the first 4 albums.  The sequencing is good and I found myself really enjoying a number of these tracks on this listen – Epitaph, Cadence and Cascade & the Sailor’s Tale especially.  Best track on the disc?  Today it was Epitaph; it continues to be a brilliant and moving song.

Disc 2 is concentrated on the brutally powerful ’72-’74 lineup.  By taking the best moments from this band, disc 2 becomes something completely out of this world.  Power, pure and simple.  Granted, there are a ton of beautiful moments on here (Book of Saturday, The Night Watch, the first section of Starless to point out the obvious ones), but the overwhelming sense on this disc is of a band that literally stomps on you.  It’s insane how good these guys are.  As I said, I was already familiar with the Discipline lineup of Crimson prior to buying this set, but it was really this 2nd disc that made me a fan for life.  Discipline is the greater album, but if you take the entirety of this lineup vs. the ’81-’84 lineup, there’s no doubt that this 70’s version of King Crimson is the best the band has ever been.  Nothing comes close, really.  They are absolutely fearless and they had the most perfect chemistry.

I think the abridged version of Larks’ 1 is quite good.  Even with excising the violin solo (and a little bit more before it), it doesn’t suffer as a composition.  Amazing piece of music.  The abridged version of Fracture still presents a great song, but I really don’t like the edit there.  I mean, Fripp completely cut out the really cool middle section.  In removing that, the song feels incomplete.  As for the edit on Starless (one of Crimson’s overall greatest achievements), it’s blasphemy.  The 1st section is absolutely beautiful, but you NEED that 2nd section!  The fade from Starless into Red is fantastic, but completely chopping off the 2nd half of the song just KILLS me.  Without that second part, there’s no tension and no release.

What I noticed more than anything else on this disc was John Wetton’s phenomenal bass playing.  Not only technically great (I love his bass line in Book of Saturday), but his tone destroys me.  He’s such a commanding presence on this disc.  It might be Fripp’s band, but Wetton’s the star here.  I simply can’t pick a best track on this disc.  Edited as they are, they’re all great.  Only this sonically-great, but slightly weak version of Easy Money is the only downer here.  It’s not bad by any means, but as I said in the Larks’ review, it’s just feeble compared to the live versions of the tune.  Otherwise, this disc is simply amazing.

Disc 3 contains nearly the whole Discipline album, minus Indiscipline – a live version of the track is on Disc 4.  Discipline is definitely the best of the three 80’s KC albums (Discipline, Beat & Three of a Perfect Pair), but 6 songs might be a bit too heavy on this disc.  Additionally there are four from Beat and then only two from TOAPP, with the only previously unreleased studio track from this bunch, The King Crimson Barber Shop ending the disc.  So this disc contains 6/7 from Discipline, half of Beat…and yet only 2 from Three of a Perfect Pair – which is a much better album than Beat.  I don’t get it.  Requiem annoyed the piss out of me on this listen.  It could have easily been swapped out for another song from TOAPP or if you just have to another Beat track, use Neal and Jack and Me.  It’s Fripp’s decision, though, so I’m just being nitpicky.

This disc is quite good, but it’s a bit much of the interlocking guitar stuff.  I thought I’d never say that!  Yes, Discipline is my favorite King Crimson album, but I wish TOAPP was better represented here.  Not that the title track and Sleepless aren’t great songs or anything, they definitely are; I just wish there was better representation from the album.  Except for Requiem, all of these songs are fantastic compositions and illustrate that Crimson was fully capable of completely reinventing themselves in 1981.  You want “progressive”?  That’s it.  Reinvention without selling out (I’m looking at you, Yes).  I could pick any number of songs that could be “best on the disc”, but the reality is that it’s still Frame By Frame.  Amazing composition.  I love the inclusion of the KC Barber Shop (all voices by Tony Levin) – it’s a fun and humorous way to end this studio portion of the boxset.

Disc four is the live disc of the box and the first instance of any “archival” Crimson material to be released.  Only Asbury Park (an improv recorded at Asbury Park, NJ, on 6/28/74) had been previously issued (from USA).  All three of the 1969 tracks (Get Thy Bearings, Travel Weary Capricorn & Mars) see their first ever appearance on a Crimson album here.  All of these songs have subsequently been released in conjunction with their respective full shows.  Quick descriptions: 1-3 from 1969, 4-6 from 1973/1974 and 7-9 from 1982/1984.

Man, I enjoy the hell out of this disc.  It’s a great hour-long slice of King Crimson as a live band.  All three versions of the band get to show off their chops and how destructive this music was in a live setting.  Only the ’71-’72 version of the band is missing here, but…let’s be honest…nothing they ever did measured up to any of the music on this disc.  The only misstep on this disc is Larks’ Three.  While Fripp’s playing is rather scorching on here, the song is the ploddy mess it always is.  The more time goes on, the less use I have for this song.  Otherwise, this disc is incredibly solid.  The version of Mars here is excellent; truly menacing stuff.  I mentioned in my review of The Nightwatch of how amazing The Talking Drum is here.  Some excellent bass playing from John Wetton on this one.  And then there’s his really cool solo on Schizoid Man – very nice.  It is SO hard to pick a best track from this disc – it could be Mars, Talking Drum or Asbury Park.  OK, I’ll go with the Talking Drum.  It’s one of the best representations of what this ’73 band could do.

This set is no longer available, unfortunately.  In 2004 & 2005 Robert Fripp released 2 box sets which are essentially expanded versions of this one: The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson.  Vol. 1 covers 1969-1974 (4 discs, live and studio) and Vol. 2 covers 1981-2003 (also 4 discs, live and studio).  In 2006 we got the “Condensed 21st Century Guide” which is a 2-disc set featuring studio highlights from 1969-2003.  That’s probably the best 2-disc summation of this wildly inventive band.  As for this Great Deceiver box?  This is really good stuff.  My favorite disc of the set is that 2nd disc, the one featuring 1973/1974 band.  The 4th live disc is right behind it.  Truthfully, the entire set is stellar.  After listening to all 4+ hours of this, you get a good sense of what King Crimson could do.  Regardless of era, they blow you away.  This is truly powerful music and just a great all-around package.

Rating: 96

Released: 1971
Tracks: Black Dog; Rock and Roll; The Battle of Evermore; Stairway to Heaven; Misty Mountain Hop; Four Sticks: Going to California; When the Levee Breaks
Best track: Stairway to Heaven
Track to skip: none

Side two comes into being with the great groove of Misty Mountain Hop.  Jeez, Bonham’s drums sound fantastic on this song!  What a great, fun song.  That 2nd section of Four Sticks is definitely one of the coolest things the band ever composed.  Another fantastic groove on this song.  I love how we get another reprise of the acoustic stuff with Going to California (gorgeous song!) before ending the album with When the Levee Breaks.  We get more Bonham greatness here.  Man, he just doesn’t quit.  To me this song seems like a redefining of blues-rock.  It’s relentless and heavy and absolutely intense.  What a perfect way to end this album.

Jeez, I mean, there’s not a bad song on this entire thing!  Everything on both sides of Led Zep IV is stellar.  They may not head into as many uncharted areas here, but what they came up with was soooooo good.  Absolute top-of-their-game material.  Every song is a classic; every song is brimming with a confidence that comes from 4 guys who are true experts of their craft.  Man, I’m blown away by this album.  True excellence – best one so far.

Rating: 97

Released: 1976
Tracks: Epitaph; Cadence & Cascade; Ladies of the Road; I Talk to the Wind (previously unreleased version); Red; Starless; The Night Watch; Book of Saturday; Peace – A Theme; Cat Food (single version); Groon; Coda from Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Part I; Moonchild; Trio; In the Court of the Crimson King
Best track: Starless
Track to skip: none

The first thing you notice about this, what’s really a “best of” for the years ’69-’74, is the absence of Crimson’s biggest “hit”, 21st Century Schizoid Man.  Robert Fripp excluded this song on purpose – probably his odd sense of humor, or more important, forcing the listener to pay attention to the *other* great songs the band did.  I’m sure that by ’76 he was quite tired of the attention that Schizoid Man received.  In truth, it doesn’t detract from the quality of this compilation.  King Crimson has so many great songs, that if you leave off Schizoid Man, it’s not a huge loss.  It actually took me a few years to notice that it wasn’t there!

There are some rarities here, which is nice.  Side 1 gives us a previously unreleased version of I Talk to the Wind from 1968 featuring Judy Dyble on vocals.  This track is really Giles, Giles & Fripp with the addition of Dyble and Ian McDonald.  I love this version of the song – Judy Dyble has such a perfect voice for this song.  Except for this album (which immediately went out of print), the track would not surface again until the GGF archival album, The Brondesbury Tapes, released in 2001.  Side 3 features the rare Cat Food single from 1970: the single edit of Cat Food and its B-side, Groon.  Both of these tracks would later be released on 1991’s Frame By Frame Set, and then again on the 30th Anniversary Remaster of In the Wake of Poseidon.  Side 3 also features the Coda from Lark’s Tongues in Aspic, Part I (the last two minutes, just the crazy talking bit); it’s incorrectly labeled as the Coda from Lark’s II.  Otherwise, all of these tracks are found on their respective albums (Moonchild thankfully omits the annoying 6 minute improv from the In the Court of the Crimson King version).

There’s no need to seek out this album, unless you just want it for collector purposes.  That’s the only reason I have it.  All of the songs and edits have been released since this compilation, most are from their original albums.  Taken on its own, however, it’s a great summary of what King Crimson did from 1969-1974.  Schizoid Man is the obvious exception, but it’s also a little strange that Lizard isn’t represented here.  A “little” strange, but really not much, as Fripp completely dislikes that album.  No matter.  I think the track selection is very good with the only odd omission being The Sailor’s Tale from Islands.  Otherwise, all of the highpoints are hit here.  It’s a solid compilation with a ton of great material and not a weak second on the whole thing.  I’m sure Fripp could sell enough copies to justify the cost if he issued it on CD (both discs total 75 minutes), but for whatever reason he didn’t.  No matter.  I think all of these songs are excellent and it’s kind of hard to choose a “best track”; for me it’s probably Starless.  I think this was the best song from this early period in Crimson’s history.  A great way to spend 75 minutes of my day.

Rating: 94

Released: 1993
Tracks: You; Creep; How Do You?; Stop Whispering; Thinking About You; Anyone Can Play Guitar; Ripcord; Vegetable; Prove Yourself; I Can’t; Lurgee; Blow Out
Best track: Blow Out
Tracks to skip: Vegetable, I Can’t, Lurgee

Pablo Honey is best known for the unexpected hit single, Creep.  Some people still only know Radiohead by this song and (somehow) don’t realize they’ve done anything since.  It has still retained its catchiness all these years and it doesn’t annoy me anywhere near as much as it used to in 1993.  It’s a good song, not the best on the disc (about in the middle somewhere), but it’s certainly not anything I ever skip.  I have to say, I love having this uncensored version as opposed to what was released in the US initially.  The rest of the songs aren’t as well-known, but they probably should be.  Songs like You, Stop Whispering, Prove Yourself and especially Blow Out are all excellent songs.  Blow Out is definitely my favorite here – a well-written song with some unexpected turns and it definitely points to the sound and songs of The Bends.

I really love that ending “jam” in Stop Whispering.  Slightly bit whiny in the vocals throughout, but the jam shows that these guys could create some seriously cool and intense music out of “noise”.  Overall the band has some pretty good choruses here, definitely catchy.  I also think that on all of these songs the music itself is consistently solid.  The main parts that annoy me are Thom Yorke’s vocals.  Mostly they’re tolerable, but he frequently gets pretty whiny.  It’s a minor complaint, but I can see people being turned off by it.  Then again, he still sings this way, so if you can’t stand his voice there’s a good chance you won’t get into much of their material.  My main problem with this album on the whole is that most of the songs are just way too short.  Songs like You, Thinking About You and especially Prove Yourself end way too soon.  These songs should have definitely been fleshed out more.  A few of these songs are only decent, stuff like How Do You? and Ripcord, and of the three skippers listed above, they’re not outright horrible (well, Lurgee just kind of plods along) but they just sound like throwaways.

I think Pablo Honey is a good start.  Some minor annoyances and some “meh” songs, but nothing is outright *bad*.  On the whole it doesn’t deserve the reputation it gets.  There are some true gems here and shockingly they’re not called Creep!  If you like Radiohead’s “guitar” music then you should check this out.  I enjoy it.

Rating: 83

In 2009 this album (along with The Bends & OK Computer) was reissued with a second disc featuring all of the album’s B-sides, some BBC sessions and most importantly the band’s long out of print debut EP, Drill.  Every one of these songs on the second disc are very hard to find and you can’t even download them from iTunes like you can the B-sides from the rest of their albums.  The rare studio and live songs fit in nicely with the quality of the songs on the album proper.

Released: 1997
Tracks: Airbag; Paranoid Android; Subterranean Homesick Alien; Exit Music (For a Film); Let Down; Karma Police; Fitter Happier; Electioneering; Climbing Up the Walls; No Surprises; Lucky; The Tourist
Best track: Subterranean Homesick Alien
Track to skip: not a second

Man, the production on this album is just perfect; absolutely beautiful.  Even when they’re being noisy, everything sounds perfect.  I don’t know, what to say?  As much as I love the Bends (and everything else they’ve done) the band just blew it all out of the water with OK Computer.  Such great songs on here!  Subterranean Homesick Alien is my favorite of the bunch.  One of my all-time favorite songs and such a gorgeous piece of music.  Man, speaking of gorgeous, what about The Tourist?  What a perfect and beautiful way to end this album.  Paranoid Android, another fantastic song.  Electioneering?  Wow, what a powerhouse.  I have to make a special point about the bass playing on Airbag – Colin Greenwood’s presence on there is fantastic and highly inspirational.

I don’t ever skip a note of this album when listening to it.  Even Fitter Happier – I think it’s a great interlude that nicely splits up the album.  Pretty startling track, too.  It’s terribly easy for me to review this album – I just LOVE IT.  Absolutely love it.  It’s definitely the best album by the most creative and original band of my adulthood.  Sounds like some cliché…I don’t care.  I think it’s a fantastic album.

Rating: 98

In 2009 this album (along with Pablo Honey & The Bends) was reissued with a second disc featuring all of the album’s B-sides and some BBC sessions.  OK Computer produced some *excellent* B-sides and I highly recommend getting the 2-disc version.

« Previous entries