BEST OF: A wasted oportunity?

Jamy&Glen ([email protected])
Tue, 3 Nov 1998 21:04:55 -0500

Woohoo . . . . well I am glad this best of is finally out, though I doubted
at first wether or not I was going to buy it. Other than the single version
of New Year's Day and the studio version of Party Girl, I already had all
the other tracks on CD. And the two I was missing I already had on a crappy
cassette copy . . . . so actually, I wasn't missing anything. Oh well. It's
nice to have all those b-sides in one place, though

My major compaint about this whole BEST OF thing is that the committee who
chose songs for this compilation missed the boat. I mean, somehow singles
from albums are always translated into "best of": in this case I won't argue
too much, because the songs that are included on this compilation are pretty
great. I guess this CD is geared more as an intro CD, a gathering of their
best known songs . . . . if you stuff it for everything, people won't be
interested in getting the albums themselves.

However, the CD only clocks in under 66 minutes, which means there is room
for at least two, maybe three more songs on this CD. Earlier U2 seems to
lose out over later U2 on this best of. I mean, do we REALLY need four songs
from Rattle & Hum when the October album is only represented on the bonus
track? Okay, so October is not U2's best record . . . but certainly Gloria
desrves to be on a best of just as much as When Love Comes to Town. And
there is plenty of room left on the disc.

Where is the studio version of 11 O'Clock Tick Tock? It's an important U2
milestone, isn't it? As far as I know, the only place you can find this song
on CD is on a Martin Hannet tribute, and in various live formats. But the
original 1980 studio version released as a single is a great piece of
music -- dark and atmospheric in its own JoyDivision-ish way.

If this was going to be a singles compilation, why isn't Two Hearts Beat As
One included too? Again, the same arguement used for Gloria can be used for
this one.

Same goes with A Celebration -- a great early song which was released as a
single, but is doomed to obscurity and bootlegs . . . . unless there is some
plan to release a boxset sometime soon, which would include Another Day, A
Celebration, 11 O'Clock Tick Tock, Touch and all the rest.

As for the "new" version of Sweetest Thing . . . . I'll take the original
any day. I've been listening to that song for over a decade, and adding a
few do doot doos is hardly an improvement on a song which didn't need any
improvement in the first place. The reprocessed version suffers from the
same sterility which unfortunately plagued the Pop album as a whole. Oh well
. . . . that's just my opionion, though judging from the remarks on the
remix's "lack of soul" recently, I guess I am not alone. Whoever wrote that
is right: it does lack soul. The original had such a great vocal track, I
can't guess why they would want to replace it with something so flat.

The B-Sides disc is great . . . . . actually, I think I have listened to
these songs more times over the years than I have the albums. Walk To the
Water will always be one of my favouirte U2 songs, and I am glad it is
getting more exposure . . . . . Deep in the Heart was left off, which is too
bad, because I like that one a lot too, but we can't have everything.
Besides, i already own a copy so why should I complain? Too bad Touch
doesn't show up on it either . . . . maybe next time.

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Tue Nov 03 1998 - 18:03:13 PST