Mitchell: New CD a musical gift to the fans
BLUE RODEO: The Things We Left Behind (WEA)
This marks Blue Rodeo’s first ever double studio album and in spite of the title, The Things We Left Behind, it is not a collection of B sides, unreleased material and demos released as product for the Xmas market.
This is a fully fledged double CD of 16 songs that are all new originals.
If the band had lopped off a song or two these tunes could have easily fit on a single disc but I like the group’s notion of breaking up the material into two.
Disc one features familiar Blue Rodeo country, folk rock and roots Canadiana with the Byrds inspired Never Look Back, The Rolling Stones-like Sheba and the Neil Youngish title track.
Disc two is more laid back and experimental with plenty of late night listening highlighted by The Band like song Candice. Blue Rodeo have long been fans of Nick Lowe/Brinsley Schwarz and a touch of this can be heard on the stand out pub rock styled song Arizona Dust, which ought to be hit bound. A solid and consistent effort from Canada’s finest roots rockers.
B+
JASON MRAZ: Beautiful Mess, Live On Earth (Atlantic)
Jason Mraz had the biggest hit off his career and one of the most enduring smashes of this summer with his breezy single simply titled Lucky.
This concert CD and DVD set includes that song plus other hits such as I’m Yours, The Remedy and All Night Long amongst the 16 tracks on his live CD and the 19 tracks on his performance video.
Mraz features a full horn section on these blue eyed soul songs but there is perhaps a little too much ego bloat on Beautiful Mess where the audience is too heavily mic-ed in the mix as Mr. Mraz wants you to know just how popular he remains.
Some fans will also enjoy these discs for the organic way in which Mraz approached his Beautiful Mess (the CD liner shows his head exploding with fruitful ideas) in that this concentrates on his more recent material so that a few earlier hits are left out of the concert.
The video disc also features a documentary of Mraz behind the scenes which will make this a fine stocking stuffer for the big Jason Mraz fan in the family. C+
Bee Gees: Ultimate Bee Gees (Reprise)
There are scads upon scads of Bee Gees collections titled ‘Best Of’ and ‘Greatest Hits’ already on the market.
The group has been anthologized so often they have several dozen more collections on the scene than they do actual studio releases.
But The Ultimate Bee Gees actually lives up to its title on this generously maxed out two CD set with 40 hits.
The Ultimate Bee Gees, subtitled The Fiftieth Anniversary Collection, greatly expands on any other retrospective as it traces the Brothers Gibb back to their earliest hit Bee Gee hit, New York Mining Disaster. That was in 1967 and at the time rumoured to be The Beatles recording under a pseudonym.
The Ultimate Bee Gees follows the group to its superstar days of the late 1970s disco era including every smash from Saturday Night Fever, the highest selling movie soundtrack album of all time.
The second CD has many ballads with late ‘60s hippie flower power, hangover, weeper songs such as Words, Massachusetts, Holiday and I’ve Got To Get A Message To You.
These earlier hits are often left off of other collections which usually stick to the disco halcyon days.
There are also a few excellent live versions of songs the band wrote for other people including their original Islands In The Stream tune, which became a big country music crossover hit as a duet for Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.
A wonderful collection with a fine essay that amply shows the Bee Gees remarkable facility with indelible melodies.
A-
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