Cheevyjames’ Musical Roundhouse

Released: 1988
Tracks: Blackened; …And Justice for All; Eye of the Beholder; One; The Shortest Straw; Harvester of Sorrow; The Frayed Ends of Sanity; To Live is to Die; Dyers Eve
Best track: could be any depending on my mood
Track to skip: none

It’s a testament to the strength of the band – specifically Hetfield & Ulrich – that they could lose such a vital part in Cliff Burton and still come out with such a fantastic album. Really, front to back, this is such a great piece of work. It’s incredibly solid all the way through. That’s why I can’t pick a “best track” out of the bunch – every track on here is great. I originally thought, “yeah, it’s Shortest Straw or One…no, maybe it’s Frayed Ends of Sanity…no, it’s definitely To Live is to Die…aw hell no, it’s Dyers Eve…no, well, One is a pretty freaking amazing song…” Yeah, you get my point. Oh, and yes, I simply love Blackened, Justice & Harvester too. I love everything here; there’s not a bad second of music on the disc. Maybe I have some bit of bias because I’ve been listening to it for so long, but I really just enjoyed the hell out of it listening to it again. I always do.

Blackened is such a downright ruthless way to start an album. That’s one great trait of the band, always starting out the albums with a bang. Hit the Lights, Fight Fire with Fire, Battery, Blackened and even Enter Sandman – Metallica always knows how to begin an album. As everyone knows, One was the surprise hit single from this album and still one of the band’s most loved songs. Both die-hards & casual fans love the song and it’s not a surprise. One is a f’n awesome song. These guys really know how to write a good song. All of the songs on here, they’re all so well-written. There are so many intricate twists and turns in the riffs and the guitar playing in general. Nothing is remotely predictable here and that’s what I love about this album. Even in heavy metal circles …And Justice was such a hugely original and influential album…just completely unpredictable.

I can’t say enough how much I love this album. It was the natural extension of what the band had been doing since they started. Listening from Kill ‘em All onwards, it was obvious they’d end up making this album. It was clear they’d get more and more progressive until they hit the point where they were seemingly at the edge. Yeah, I think this album is that edge. Beyond it? Who the hell knows – not many bands are willing to push themselves past the edge. It’s like they push and push until they get to that place where they have mastered everything they know…and then there’s nothingness. Like the edge of a cliff, where in front of you is a vast blackness. Do you jump? Or do you turn back around? That was the decision Metallica had to make after creating …And Justice for All. We’ll see which way they went soon enough (and no, the color of the cover for their 5th album doesn’t tell you where they went).

Yes, I am giving Justice the same grade as Master of Puppets. The songwriting is better on that album, the mix is better and it features the best work from one of my favorite musicians, Cliff Burton. If he had lived to make this album with the band? Who knows how amazing it could be. As it is, they’re both excellent albums…Justice less so, but honestly not by much.

Rating: 97

Released: 1987
Tracks: Helpless; The Small Hours; The Wait; Crash Course in Brain Surgery; Last Caress/Green Hell
Best track: Helpless or Crash Course in Brain Surgery
Track to skip: none

The EP starts off with a Diamond Head tune, Helpless, that’s possibly the best of the bunch. Lars does some great double-bass work on this song and it’s a lot of fun to listen to. Truthfully, all of these songs are fun. Some are pretty dark (The Wait, The Small Hours) and everything rocks hard on here, but the overwhelming feeling here is fun. I love the raw-ness on this album, how you can hear the buzzing of the amps and hands moving around the fretboard at various times. It’s not something they took overly serious and it’s clear how relaxed they were at these sessions. It literally sounds like they set up their gear, hit the record button, recorded a take live, and then went on to the next song. I love the carefully-produced stuff like Puppets & Justice, but I have to say it’s nice and refreshing to hear the band play like this.

The other 4 songs on the EP go through tracks by Holocaust, Killing Joke, Budgie & the Misfits (with a very short bastardization of Iron Maiden’s Run to the Hills at the very end). I think that Crash Course in Brain Surgery is another candidate for “best track” here, but in reality everything is good. The songs are tight, but also retain that loose quality. Overall, yeah, it’s a fun release and it provides a nice bit of levity after the loss of Cliff Burton. Not to mention before the brutality of the following release. This EP/CD has been out of print for many years, but thankfully the band included this in their “Garage Inc.” album that gathers all of the rare tracks they recorded over the years.

Rating: 85

Released: 1981
Tracks: Over the Mountain; Flying High Again; You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll; Believer; Little Dolls; Tonight; S.A.T.O.; Diary of a Madman
Best track: Diary of a Madman, barely edging out S.A.T.O.
Track to skip: none

There are no skippers here, even though there are a couple of moments of “less-than-greatness”. I really like You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll as a song, and there’s some fantastic playing on there, but the chorus lyrics confuse me a bit. I’m not one to love “pro-rock” songs and I’m not sure what the chorus of the song has to do with the rest of it. Is it about music critics? Did people think Ozzy was some sort of prophet? I don’t get it. I just kind of ignore the chorus because it’s kinda cheesy. Still, on the whole I like the song. Little Dolls is a song I’m torn on – I absolutely love Rudy Sarzo’s bass playing on here and I certainly like the song, but it’s never one I go out of my way to hear. I have to say, though, that the song construction is quite cool. I love that the pre-chorus is where the title is sung, not to mention Sarzo’s great bass work in that part. I’m also torn on Tonight; sometimes I think it’s kinda cheesy, but then sometimes I just love it. I think that this song in particular is one of the songs that suffers from the over-indulgent production. There’s just too much going on there.

A few nit-picky things, but that’s it for any points taken off. The rest of the album is absolutely stellar. Over the Mountain and Flying High Again make a perfect 1-2 punch to open the album and Believer…oh, man, what a fantastically evil song. Those riffs sound so demonic and are pure awesomeness. It’s just a great heavy song. Man, I especially love that verse riff. Brilliant. When we get to the last two songs of the album, SATO (stupid periods) & Diary of a Madman – WATCH OUT. These two songs are so absolutely awesome and two of the best songs Ozzy’s ever done. SATO is a constant stream of bad-assness. That main riff is excellence in songwriting. This is one of those songs that you’ll never hear on the radio, but for me it’s got a similar feel to Steal Away from Blizzard – which just happens to be my favorite song Ozzy & Randy ever did. SATO merges perfectly with the album’s closer, Diary of a Madman. Holy crap, that guitar intro to Diary is one of the coolest things Randy Rhoades ever wrote. One of the many things he did that makes guitarists have to pick our jaws off the floor. Diary of a Madman is such an excellent song and an unexpected closer. I mean, you think that it can’t get any better than what you’ve already listened to for 35 minutes and then this absolutely magical piece of music comes on and completely redefines this already great album. I love the addition of the strings on this tune; I just wish they were placed a bit better in the mix. Still, the subtleness works in their favor.

So what’s the verdict? I don’t know. I love both this and Blizzard of Ozz. I think the compositions are better on Blizzard by a hair, but the actual performance and attitude on this album is better. I think that both are absolutely essential metal albums and each are representations of the perfect blueprint for heavy metal albums. Everybody shines on this album and there’s so much to love here. I have no idea which is a better album, this or Blizzard. They’re equal in my eyes and really are parts 1 & 2 of this slab of greatness.

Rating: 96

Released: 1980
Tracks: Neon Knights; Children of the Sea; Lady Evil; Heaven and Hell; Wishing Well; Die Young; Walk Away; Lonely is the Word
Best track: Heaven & Hell
Tracks to skip: Lady Evil, Walk Away

Ronnie James Dio had previously played with Elf and, more popularly, Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow before joining with Black Sabbath, who had recently kicked out Ozzy Osbourne for a 2nd time. I think the general perception is that Sabbath had lost their way on the previous two albums, Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die. It’s true (and admirable) that Sabbath was never content to be “just a heavy metal band” and once they gained popularity in the early 70’s they experimented quite a bit with instruments, composition styles and production throughout the decade. Still, I think there was a desire from the larger Sabbath fan base that wanted the heavy stuff, since that’s what Sabbath was best at. Is it fair to pigeon-hole them into being “just” a heavy metal band? Not really, but I think the fans wanted it and the band did too. The band had grown and experimented, but really weren’t what they used to be. So, the solution is get a new singer who brings a completely different presence and talent and essentially re-define yourself.

The Ozzy vs. Dio comparisons are naturally going to happen. Rainbow had been a very popular band in the 70’s so people knew what Dio was capable of. I think both singers were “good” for Black Sabbath and they each brought good things to the band. What I like about Dio is that he’s more of a true vocalist than Ozzy is. I think Ozzy has the charisma and personality, but Dio has the qualities that make him a better singer. For one, Ozzy can’t write lyrics and his melodies aren’t terribly creative (see Iron Man). Dio’s lyrics are…interesting…and even though I don’t think he’s a lyrical genius, he brings out a world (circles and rings, dragons and kings…not to mention rainbows and pleas to LOOK OUT!) that is quite poetic at times and the fantasy lyrics work perfectly for heavy metal. I think Dio sounds great on this album and he really reinvigorated the band. They seriously needed this kick in the ass.

Heaven and Hell is far from a perfect album, though. I love Neon Knights and Children of the Sea is another excellent composition that features some great bass playing by Geezer Butler. After these two great songs, what’s the next move? Lady Evil….wait, really? Man, this song is bad and it sounds like a KISS song. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me that the two worst songs on here (Lady Evil & Walk Away) not only sound like KISS, but they’re both about women – “relationship” songs in a sense. In an otherwise amazing side 1, Lady Evil sticks out and makes you wonder what the hell they were doing. The song bites, there’s not much more to it. Finally side 1 closes out with the title track and probably the best song on the album. H&H is an excellent and very well-written song. It perfectly captures the darkness and light of this band, not to mention completely enveloping the listener in this fantasy-metal realm. Besides the lyrical imagery, the song just flat out kicks ass.

The rest of the album, side 2, is decent, but nowhere near as solid as those 3 songs from side 1. Wishing Well is a pretty good tune and there are some nice changes in the chorus of Die Young, even if the song as a whole is only OK. Walk Away, bleh, more KISS-a-like stuff. Lonely is the Word, again, is decent and features an interesting jazzy guitar solo (lots of guitar playing on this song, actually), but it’s still just an OK song. The keyboards on this one are especially annoying. So yeah, the second side has some moments (Wishing Well is the best complete song), but mostly it’s forgettable. That’s disappointing coming off the mostly excellent side 1. Then again, I’m looking at this almost 30 years after its release. Some things will age better than others and something that may not appeal to a 32 year-old guy in 2008, might have totally kicked ass to a 15 year-old kid in 1980. Another thing is that I didn’t grow up listening to this album, I heard it for the first time a couple of years ago. Still, my opinion is that the 2nd side doesn’t hold up to the first and that’s where the classics are. I do think the band succeeded in reinventing itself and with the recent reunion of the band (known as “Heaven & Hell” to avoid any problems with Ozzy & Sharon Osboure) they’ve reconnected with people’s love for this material. You could probably spring for the “best of” from this lineup and cover the best songs, but there’s always the chance you’d dig the other stuff on this album.

Rating: 83

Released: 1978
Tracks: Runnin’ With the Devil; Eruption; You Really Got Me; Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love; I’m the One; Jamie’s Cryin’; Atomic Punk; Feel Your Love Tonight; Little Dreamer; Ice Cream Man; On Fire
Best track: Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, I’m the One or Ice Cream Man. Or On Fire…or Running With the Devil…
Track to skip: Little Dreamer is decent, but it’s clearly the weakest of the bunch

There are a lot of great things about this album – the guitar playing, the attitude that permeates throughout, the high-flying vocals, the monstrous riffs, the eclecticism, the bare-bones production. OK, I love how raw the production is, how REAL it sounds, and how every band after this (including VH) tried to get an album to sound this good…and they never succeeded. I’m not saying this is the best-sounding album ever. It’s not. It is, however, distinctive and raw and it comes at you like punch in the face. This is a great headphone album, just to get the full appreciation of it.

Awright, I want to talk about the songs. I noted the eclecticism of this album. It’s certainly a heavy metal album and I love how they cover The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, a song that was perhaps the first heavy metal song. The metal is here (Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, Atomic Punk, Runnin’ With the Devil), but you also get the bebop-on-steroids I’m the One, I Cream Man’s redefining of the “blues”, the groove of Jamie’s Cryin’ and the Beach Boys-influenced harmonies on Feel Your Love Tonight. They simultaneously created boundaries and pushed the already existing boundaries for heavy metal. It’s pretty impressive, to be honest. Man, I mean, just listen to Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing in I’m the One. Phenomenal. What else can I say? This is truly a ground-breaking album and one of the greatest rock debuts in history. I know that sounds incredibly lame to say, not to mention clichéd, but it’s true. Van Halen I rocks and there’s no other way to say it.

Rating: 95

Released: 1982
Tracks: Big Electric Cat; The Momur; Stop It; The Man in the Moon; Naive Guitar; Hot Sun; The Lone Rhinoceros; Swingline; Adidas in Heat; Animal Grace; The Final Rhino
Best track: Lone Rhinoceros
Track to skip: Animal Grace has cool sounds, but isn’t a very good “song”

I like how Belew’s not afraid to present both very serious & ultra absurd songs on this album. Both are important parts of his songwriting. For the serious songs we have The Man in the Moon (written about his father) & The Lone Rhinoceros, an “animal hugger” song dealing with the treatment of the Rhino. Lone Rhinoceros is clearly the best song on here and I honestly think it’s one of the most important and thought-provoking songs he’s ever written. I especially love the sequencing that goes from two excellent instrumentals, Naive Guitar & Hot Sun, into Lone Rhinoceros. This chunk in the middle is definitely the best part of the album. The bookends are where the goofy songs are found. The Momur is an extremely fun romp of a song, while Adidas in Heat is a VERY Zappa-influenced tune and a definite feast for the ears. The Final Rhino closes out the album in a duet with Belew and his 4 year old daughter.

Belew’s guitar work and slightly-odd compositions are the focal points of this debut. There is some very cool guitar playing here, even if the actual tones are pretty out-dated. Overall I think it’s a fun album and a good start for Adrian Belew, but it’s certainly not his best work. Songs like Swingline and especially Animal Grace drag it down a bit. You can definitely see that the creativity is there, but he just needed some more practice at composing before he consistently hits it out the park. Both this and his second album, Twang Bar King, have been re-released individually, as well as a two-fer with both albums on one CD. This is what I bought and I think it’s pretty cool this way.

Rating: 81

Released: 1987
Tracks: Where the Streets Have No Name; I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For; With or Without You; Bullet the Blue Sky; Running to Stand Still; Red Hill Mining Town; In God’s Country; Trip Through Your Wires; One Tree Hill; Exit; Mothers of the Disappeared
Best track: Bullet the Blue Sky or Where the Streets Have No Name
Track to skip: none

I don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about Where the Streets Have No Name, I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, With or Without You, Bullet the Blue Sky and In God’s Country…but what the hell. Yeah, they’re still heard on the radio all of the time and they’re all great songs. 20 years later and they have only gotten better. For me, Bullet the Blue Sky is probably the best song here, featuring some excellent slide guitar work from The Edge. It has a great mood to it, slightly creepy and a little bit on edge. I’m also especially fond of the album opener with its mellow beginning before it explodes into the song proper. It’s the perfect opening for this album. For With or Without You, probably the biggest single on the album, they really perfected that “orgasmic” thing they do so often. Repeat the same riff over and over…and somehow it never gets old, and when it hits the crescendo…bam, you’re right there with it. I think they’ve mastered this technique over the years.

Man, this is a GREAT headphone album. Daniel Lanois & Brian Eno’s production is excellent throughout and they play as important of a role as the band does. Eno’s use of keyboards on this album is just brilliant. There’s a major ethereal quality to these songs and to the album as a whole. I know that comes from Lanois & Eno’s production. Listening with headphones gives you the opportunity to hear all the various layers of sound on the album, specifically The Edge’s sonic contributions. As great as Bono is on here (and yes, this is his best vocal performance on record), The Edge completely steals the show.

The non-hit songs are all good songs as well, and that certainly helps the overall quality of the album. I really love the juxtaposition between Bullet the Blue Sky and Running to Stand Still. Such a great shift in mood and a great change in the use of slide guitar. Yeah, I’ll admit that I do love the first half of the album more than the second half. Not by much, though. The first 9 songs are all pretty easy to digest, while the last two, Exit & Mothers of the Disappeared, are the ones where the band really pushes things. They’re pretty experimental in a way and they almost exist outside of this album, if such is possible. I guess it’s that they’re so different that you might almost not even realize they’re there. I’ll be honest, I don’t like them as much as the other 9, but they’re still really interesting songs and reward the listener with active listening. To me Mothers of the Disappeared doesn’t necessarily wrap up the album in a nice and tidy way, but maybe the album isn’t supposed to have that kind of resolve. I think One Tree Hill provides that resolve and the last two tracks are there for those willing to delve into them. Regardless, The Joshua Tree is a stellar album and probably the best album U2’s ever made. Avoid the “hits” compilations and go straight for the real thing, it’s more than worth it.

Rating: 95

Released: 1983
Tracks: Love Struck Baby; Pride and Joy; Texas Flood; Tell Me; Testify; Rude Mood; Mary Had a Little Lamb; Dirty Pool; I’m Cryin’; Lenny; [reissue bonus tracks] SRV Speaks; Tin Pan Alley (aka Roughest Place in Town); Testify (Live); Mary Had a Little Lamb (Live); Wham! (Live)
Best track: either Testify or Lenny
Tracks to skip: SRV Speaks, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Tin Pan Alley

Since I came into this whole thing late, it’s been harder for me to identify him with individual albums; it was always everything together for me. So, it’s interesting to go back and listen to these albums as individual statements and delve into them that way. I think “Texas Flood” is a perfect name for this album, the introduction to the world outside of Texas to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. You can clearly hear where SRV came from in players like Buddy Guy, Jimi Hendrix and especially Albert King, but he managed to always have his own identifiable sound. You can hear one note and know it’s Stevie Ray Vaughan. I love the statement this album makes, it’s a very direct and “you have no choice but deal with it” kind of statement. A very commanding statement.

Love Struck Baby is a good song, but a slightly tame opening before Pride and Joy hits with the full knock-down tone of Stevie’s guitar. Pride and Joy is probably the band’s most famous track and one that still holds up 25 years later. Texas Flood is a tremendous song that shows the band tackling the slower material and making it shine. My favorite song from side 1, and maybe for the whole album, is the first of three instrumentals, Testify. Talk about ruthless guitar playing…wow. The song is fast, furious and so thoroughly kicks your ass that you can’t possibly think about getting a break before Rude Mood comes and knocks you down again. Back-to-back, these two songs feature some absolutely punishing guitar work from SRV.

The rest of side two is pretty solid, but I’m not a huge fan of Mary Had a Little Lamb. The song has a nice groove to it, but the nursery-rhyme lyrics really turn me off. I usually end up skipping the track because it doesn’t give me too much that I like to hear more than once. The album proper closes with Lenny, a song Stevie wrote for his wife. It’s a gorgeous and mellow song and even though they didn’t come out too often, you get the feeling that he could write stuff like this and Riviera Paradise all day. Lenny is a great composition and it returns to the theme at the right time, every time. It’s such a well-written song. The rest of the album features 5 bonus tracks: an excerpt of Stevie speaking about where his playing comes from, an outtake from the sessions, Tin Pan Alley, & 3 live tracks. “SRV Speaks” is pretty useless and I dislike its inclusion here. Tin Pan Alley…eh, I like that he was attempting the “ultra-slow blues” with this one, but it just doesn’t work as a composition for me. The live tracks that end the disc are excellent and I wonder why the full show hasn’t been released. You get a version of Testify (holy crap!), a much better version of Mary Had a Little Lamb & the show’s closer, Wham!, a track that wouldn’t see a release until the posthumous The Sky is Crying in 1991. These 3 tracks just go to show how even more powerful this group was in a live setting.

I really love the sound of this album, it’s really “bare bones”. There are no overdubs here, just bass, drums, guitar and vocals – exactly as you’d hear them live. Both Tommy Shannon (bass) & Chris Layton (drums) are great throughout this album, but I have to point out Tommy Shannon’s bass tone here is especially thick and excellent. You know, this is a great debut. There are some iffy tracks, but overall it’s solid. You get a strong sense of power from this album and you know more great things would come from this guy. I absolutely love the guitar playing on this album; it’s just astounding how good he is.

Rating: 92

Released: 1994
Tracks: Pretty Good Year; God; Bells for Her; Past the Mission; Baker Baker; The Wrong Band; The Waitress; Cornflake Girl; Icicle; Cloud My Tongue; Space Dog; Yes, Anastasia
Best tracks: God, the chorus of Past the Mission
Tracks to skip: Baker Baker, The Wrong Band, Icicle, Cloud My Tongue, Yes Anastasia

Second album! On the whole I think this is a successful follow-up to Little Earthquakes. She certainly didn’t have a sophomore slump. The songs are familiar enough and “safe”, but at the same time she pushes new ground and expands what she’s capable of doing. It’s growth, but not an obscene amount of it. As I said, a successful follow-up. As with Earthquakes, I do feel it goes on too long. I don’t know, I’ve gotten used to it. I expect there to be some songs that just don’t grab me and I usually wish the albums ended sooner. I also expect there to be some songs that absolutely knock my ass off. This album is no exception in either regard. God & Cornflake Girl were the main singles off this album and both are excellent songs, God especially. It’s definitely my favorite song on the album. Well-written song with some great bass playing and, holy crap, she gets pretty funky on here. There are some very cool changes in here and I love the way she sings this song. This might be her best-known song and it’s certainly deserving of that distinction. Cornflake Girl has this cool Irish undertone, but she moves the song in a completely different direction and brings out another grooving song.

I think Pretty Good Year is a good opener with some unexpected changes. I especially like that heavy bit in the song. Really, in many of her songs she throws in so many twists and turns in the music that it’s no surprise to me that I focus on that stuff. The Wrong Band is also a bit structurally unpredictable, even if I do end up skipping it. I like the humorous & quirky bits, but ultimately it’s not one I want to hear that often. Space Dog, whew, she’s all over the place in that one. Decent song, but totally unpredictable. The Waitress is a cool song with some nice experimentation in programming. I like that transition from Bells for Her into the verse of Past the Mission. It’s such a great clash of styles and moods. On Bells for Her I’m not sure if it’s a treated piano or if it’s some strange microphone placement, but the effect of the piano is quite cool – some really wicked overtones and harmonics. When that leads in to Past the Mission, it starts off with this just overly-happy piano bit that’s really shocking in a way. Maybe she’s being sarcastic. But then, oh crap, the chorus. I bet I’m not alone in saying that the chorus for Past the Mission is one of the coolest things in her whole catalog. A great chorus anyway, but Trent Reznor adds some excellent vocals and it provides a nice “male” counterpoint to Tori’s voice.

The structure of this album is a bit odd in that it’s got 4 good songs before heading into 2 not-so-good ones in Baker Baker and The Wrong Band. The flow starts to drag with those two, but thankfully picks up for Waitress & Cornflake Girl. Then, crap, more songs that lose me. Icicle is just kinda creepy and it’s not one I want to hear very much. Cloud My Tongue – eh, sounds pretty cliché for her. It doesn’t hold any interest for me. So that’s how it goes: some great tracks…then two skippers, a couple more great tracks…then two more skippers. This really affects the flow of the album and by this point I have to admit, I’m gone. Space Dog is decent enough, but it doesn’t hold a ton of interest before the album concludes with Yes, Anastasia. 9 minute songs can be great, but the first half of this one bores me. I really like it when the strings come in roughly half way through; that provides some nice movement to go against Tori’s vocals. The 2nd half of the song almost redeems the track, but on the whole I honestly skip it and I think it’s a “blah” ending for this album.

I do think that Under the Pink is a great 2nd step for Tori Amos, even with all of its problems. Some of the sequencing and songs are great, some…ugh, I just can’t sit through it. What I like about this album is that it’s a big enough step past the first album and she really gets more confidence on here (that’s not to say she didn’t have it in the first place, she certainly is very confident on Little Earthquakes). So there you go, some of this I really like, and some I don’t need to hear anymore. If you’re a hard core fan (ears…feet…phile, whatever) then you probably already own this. If you like the first one, definitely check this out.

Rating: 80

Released: 1994
Tracks: When We Dance; If You Love Somebody Set Them Free; Fields of Gold; All This Time; Fortress Around Your Heart; Be Still My Beating Heart; They Dance Alone (Cueca Solo); If I Ever Lose My Faith in You; Fragile; Why Should I Cry For You?; Englishman in New York; We’ll Be Together; Russians; This Cowboy Song
Best track: Fortress Around Your Heart
Tracks to skip: Why Should I Cry For You always bored me, same for We’ll Be Together

I think this album is an excellent musical study in How to Write a Good Pop Song. It could almost be considered a text book for songwriting. Sure there are some misses, but for the most part it’s an incredibly solid and well-written album. I haven’t heard all of Sting’s albums all the way through (half of ‘em, I’d say), but when you take the hits and put them together, you’ve got a very strong album. I think at 66 minutes it’s the perfect length too. Yeah, you could squeeze a few more tracks on there (and I believe some international releases did), but it’s the right length just the way it is. In this collection you get 2 new songs (When We Dance & This Cowboy Song), 2 remixes (Fortress & Why Should I Cry For You) and a previously unreleased version of We’ll Be Together. I guess this stuff is designed for collectors or something; fortunately the remixes & the other version of We’ll Be Together keep the integrity of the originals intact. For me, though, I’ve never liked We’ll Be Together – it’s just way too cheesy and sounds pretty half-hearted of a song. Like I said above, Why Should I Cry For You just plain bores me. I mean, it’s OK, but there’s not much to it. Besides those two, yeah, we have a solid group of songs.

Fortress Around Your Heart is my favorite and has always been my favorite song of his from the early years. It’s just an excellent song that shows the strength in Sting’s songwriting. Also songs like Fragile, All This Time, If I Ever Lose My Faith in You & Fields of Gold are major career highlights. Fragile is especially excellent. I really like the two new songs as well, both are strong compositions with This Cowboy Song being a welcome “fun” thing after the heaviness of Russians. Englishman in New York is another silly song and while that cheesy “heavy” drum break in the middle annoys me, for the most part the song is inoffensive to me. It doesn’t bother me, but I’m sure it bothers some people. Sting doesn’t get too political here, only bringing it out in Russians & They Dance Alone (I love that awesome drum bit at the end, played by Manu Katche I assume).

I think it’s time for Sting to release a stellar 2-disc “best of” since he has plenty of stuff to add in the years since 1994. Until that time, this is still the best way to go to get the best stuff he did in the 80’s and early 90’s. True, you’re going to miss some amazing songs that are only on his proper albums, but this is a great introduction to his solo music. I’d avoid getting the “best of Sting & the Police” CD as it’s a crime against humanity to force a few Police hits onto a CD of Sting’s solo stuff. Yes, I totally prefer the Police’s music to Sting solo, but this is a perfect starting place when diving into his solo music.

Rating: 92

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