Great Two-Albums-On-One-CD Anthology Of An Underrated Band
356337
707+THE SECOND ALBUM TWO-FER is two great albums by the underrated 80s AOR band 707. They came out around the same time as Foreigner, Night Ranger, Boston, and Journey, but unfortunately, haven't gotten anywhere near the amount of recognition accorded those bands; even Shooting Star get more acclaim these days, which is unfortunate because all four members could write and sing lead as well as play. Kevin Russell is perhaps the great lost rocker of the 80s. This CD blends hard rock with progressive twists very much in the same manner as Shooting Star does, but with a bit more complex music in a style very similar to 70s Kansas. Buy this CD and discover the great lost AOR band.
4932091
Combining Gerry Rafferty's out-of-print fourth and fifth solo albums, this two CD is a no frills package lacking even any credits as to who appears on the albums. The CDs themselves sound quite good--crisp, clear with nice dynamic range (in the case of "Snakes and Ladders" it is a clone of the previously available CD). I ended up picking thisup to replace my missing copy of "Sleepwalking" and it's hard to argue with the price for these two fine sounding CDs.

The pair of CDs come in a dual CD jewel case holder.

It's a pity that EMI didn't put a LITTLE bit more effort into this as the inside back cover has lots of empty space where they could at least list the full credits for each album. The CDs feature, unlike&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/City-To-City-Night-Owl/dp/B004O0TKWG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">City To City/Night Owl</a>, new label artwork (a while label with a red center) which doesn't list anything other than the album titles. Again, this space could easily have featured credits for each album much like their earlier counterparts.

I do wish that EMI would do a full scale reissue of Rafferty's albums giving them the deluxe treatment with bonus tracks, outtakes, b-sides and demos much like the 2 CD "<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/City-to-City/dp/B005GPFFAY/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">City to City</a>. While this set isn't perfect it sounds terrific with two fine albums of music and is priced well.

Recommended.
610816
I must admit this HAS to be one of the best Hawkwind compilation CD's ever. Hawkwind is one of those bands that you could easily have like two or three or even more of their compilation / 'best of' releases and still have many different tunes on each disc. They have QUITE a lot of material out there. The thirteen tracks here were originally put out between 1970-73. It starts off with the single edit of "Psychedelic Warlords" and the live mix of "Brainstorm" off their sacred 'Space Ritual' lp. Then there's three tunes off their 1970 self-titled debut lp, a very clean mix of "Hurry On Sundown", "Paranoia" and "Mirror Of Illusion". For the true collector, there are two long-sitting-in-a-vault tracks, "Brainbox Pollution" and the incredible "Urban Guerilla". Then there are a couple of rare B-sides like "It's So Easy" and "Adjust Me". These cuts do include the classic '70's HW line-up of Brock, Turner, Lemmy, Simon King and Del Dettmar. The booklet enclosed contains some interested band facts, such as... did you know the band played the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival where Hendrix played one of his final gigs and Hawkwind set up outside the gate to play a free gig to protest the highway robbery ticket prices? Most worthy of repeated plays.
4354198
Notably 'SWF Sessions' is some unreleased My Solid Ground  material with a healthy dose of bonus tracks from 2001 with band member guitarist Bernhard Rendel directly involved. Tunes here that make this CD a decent pick are the suitable opener "Hysterical", the well-received "Short Waves", the ten-minute "1-40" (a fine progressive cut, I'll admit), "Frogster" and the eleven-minute epic (so to speak) "Mystery Metal Thing". Not as out-standing as their self-titled 1971 lp but 'Swf Sessions' definitely has it's moments. Might appeal to fans of Sperrmull, 2066 And Then, Arzachel and possibly Os Mundi.
3387082
So finally Sony has decided to release a Pearl Jam Greatest Hits Package.  Like another reviewer, I was interested to see what they would chose for this compilation.  While little on it really surprised me (apart from Breath, and State of Love and Trust), it is still a great double disc set.  For those of you who only recognize PJ as the alt-rock radio band, then grab this (especially for under $20) - some of their later songs might be a nice surprise. I especially liked how they capped the whole thing off with Yellow Ledbetter at the end of disc 2.  It's out of order chronologically, but it's fitting and shows that some genuine thought went into making these cds.
1956721
An excellent idea to pair the best solo work of the two songwriters and driving forces behind the great band the Go-Betweens on a double disc retrospective. I wasn't that familiar with the solo work of either artist before getting this collection, so I can't moan about any gems that were left off either disc. But this is a very impressive offering of music, further proof of how good these fellows are (or "were" in the sad case of Grant McLennan's passing). The track listing I see posted on Amazon, however, is not correct; the only give a partial listing of tracks from one disc. The Grant McLennan disc has 13 songs, including amazing gems such as "Lighting Fires" and "Easy Come Easy Go." The Robert Forster disc also has 13 tracks, including faves like "Falling Star" and "Danger in the Past." The CD package comes with a booklet that includes all the song lyrics. Never too late to discover the music of these two gifted songwriters.
2509490
This follows, as the title says, the later period of the band on Fontana records. When Terry Bickers was still in the group, as he was for perhaps half of these non-chronologically ordered recordings, the band crackled well in post-Smiths, pro-glum style. The sound of the layered textures Stephen Hague captured on the "butterfly" album (titled, third in a row, as "The House of Love" unhelpfully--the first two are now paired on the Creation anthology) works magically to stimulate the mind and the body. and remains one of my all-time favorites for its fantastic production; Hague also produced Pere Ubu's "Cloudland" around the same time, another tour-de-force if unexpected match-up.

After Bickers left to found Levitation, the remaining trio stumbled on with "Babe Rainbow" and "Audience with the Mind" less. The best moments from both are found here, and BR especially has many decent moments excerpted here, but AwtM barely registers, even on the selected cuts collected here.

Still, in lieu of hearing the original "Butterfly" Fontana 1990 release, this helpfully gathers the legacy of in my opinion a very-overlooked band that deserved a better fate. Check out, if you want a lively one-disc overview, their Peel Sessions as well.
1319631
The Treasure Chest compilation limited edition is a good, economical way for fans new to the band to get acquainted with Helloween's earlier work.  This compilation touches every facet of Helloween's illustrious career--covering all 11 (at the time of release) of Helloween's albums.  Included are the classics such as Ride the Sky, Murderer, A Little Time, Future World, the 13+ minute epics Halloween and Keeper of the Seven Keys, the humorous Dr. Stein, the hard to find Michael Kiske version of Starlight, and the beautiful Eagle Fly Free, just to name a few.

The interesting thing about this album is that Andi Deris, who took over singing duties after Michael Kiske left, was supposed to re-sing some of the tracks on Treasure Chest.  Also, the live version of How Many Tears, as it appeared on I Want Out Live, was supposed to be on this compilation.  I thought it would have been cool to hear Deris' interpretation of some of these songs, but this did not happen.  However, I did get to hear these songs live when I saw Helloween in October 2003 in Chicago.  Anyway, back to the review.

The third disc in this compilation is a collection of some of Helloween's singles from 1991-2000.  There are some really cool b-sides on this disc that are really hard to find.  It would cost hundreds of dollars to get this single b-sides if you bought each individually.  Included are 4 of the 7 original Master of the Rings b-sides, some of which should have been on the album instead of b-sides.  Really very cool, though.  However, Helloween has so many b-sides that the band could have easily included another disc.  At any rate, this limited edition is a great buy for any Helloween fan--beginner and seasoned vet alike.
3512514
For about the past year or so I have really been getting into prog rock and have collected a few albums on vinyl on CD from bands like Yes and Kansas. Before I decided to buy this album I already had their studio albums from the 70s, had "Two for the Show" on vinyl and the 30th anniversary edition of it as MP3. I thought that this would be a nice CD collection of Kansas live considering it is cheaper than "Two for the Show" on CD and contains two previously unreleased tracks. It is a nice collection for anyone, with alot of hits and live fan favorites as well as supportive instrumentation to the beautiful vocals. There are a few songs towards the end of the album where the quality of the recordings slightly suffer, but it didn't really bother me as a music fan who rarely listens to live bootlegs. If you are worried about quality than you may want to preview this album in the iTunes Store before you buy but otherwise, don't hesitate in buying this compilation!
2576333
When this was released as an lp, it was considered a bit odd, because some of the songs included aren't the band's most well-known material. Now that it's released on cd, I'd say that's just one more good reason to buy this. They are one of the iconic groups for their time period and this collection is a pretty good representation of who they were as a band. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw its released and hopped on it before it could go out of print. The sound quality is decent and worth the money.
933871
Influenced by Gene Clark, Gram Parsons as well as The Clash and a key influence on later bands, The Long Ryders were lost to the mist of time as they got little airplay on radio and, for those few stations that might play them, they were around for such a short span of time that they didn't reach the audience they deserved. Yet they paved the way for many of the indie and alt country band's that emerged over the past twenty years.

The fact that they never reached critical mass and didn't break through to a massive audience is Unfortunate as they are a terrific band and these are terrific performances.

The Ryders "Final Wild Songs" gathers up a lot of the band's existing recordings including rare live tracks and alternate mixes in a nice 4 CD package . These exceptions include the following tracks (and I'm sure I've missed a few besides these):
From Native Sons Deluxe:

Still Get By (Radio Tokyo Demos)
 10-5-60 (Radio Tokyo Demos)
 And She Rides (Radio Tokyo Demos)
 Time Keeps Traveling (5x5
 I Can't Hide (5x5)
 The Trip (10-5-60)
 Too Close To The Light (Buckskin Mix - B-Side)
Still Get By (Album version)
 From Two-Fisted Tales Deluxe :

 Still Get By (Native Sons)
 State Of My Union (Live)
 Time Keeps Travelling (Live)
 Baby We All Gotta Go Down (Live)

(These noted by Phillip Jaybe)
The packaging is nicely done--a clam shell mini-boxed set with a poster and a 23 page booklet.

The big, big question is how is the mastering of this set? Does it sound good, bad or indifferent? Andy Pearce has mastered a series albums with mixed results. For example the 10cc reissues of "Ten Out of 10" and "Windows In The Jungle" feature compression which makes them louder and less dynamic.

Luckily that isn't the case here as band members Sid Griffin and Tom Stevens were involved in the selection of tracks. Pearce does a very good job with this release and kudos to him for doing so.

The original master tapes have been used here (except where that wasn't possible especially for some of the rare tracks included here) for the most part. Spread over four discs, this will be the definitive version of the band's recordings. Fans will be happy with this release (even if it is missing one essential track). It would be nice to see this replicated on vinyl as well.
4917185
This is about as good a collection as you could do:  No sense messing with a classic; that is to say, unless it's to add a few great bonus tracks, which was done with this reissue.  Two, appropriately, from Leslie West's solo album, prophetically entitled "Mountain", which were big fan favorites at Mountain concerts and demonstrate the prototype foundation that evolved into the super group itself; and two more simply awesome Mountain tracks.  The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been to throw on a song or two from the Avalanche album that was originally released after this compilation.  In fact, when you consider that Mountain only had 3 and a half studio albums total, not doing so is a bit of a misstep.  Still, altogether, this is a great comp for fans of early-seventies hard rock like Black Sabbath or BTO (they're sort of a mixture of the two) but don't have any of the aforementioned albums. There is certainly more to this group than just "Mississippi Queen"; this whole album pretty much rocks, even the downbeat songs.

Some have commented on the sound quality being poor; it is odd that they reissued this but there's no mention of remastering.  However, these recordings sound like they weren't engineered well to begin with, even for the time; remastering is only going to do so much here.  On the other hand, to my ears it just sounds like they're live recordings without the audience noise, which adds a certain power to them that I enjoy.  But that will be subjective from listener to listener.

I have to also say I enjoyed the brief but well-written liner notes.  That sort of thing really adds to the value of a package like this.  All said, this is a fun yet bludeoningly heavy collection of classic rock that fans of the genre should definitely have in their collection.
2117252
If you are a casual Scorpions fan, but want a more comprehensive compilation than the 20th Century Masters - Best of Scorpions album, then Box of Scorpions is one of the best deals available.  This album touches on pretty much every Scorpions album, from 1972's Lonesome Crow through 2002's Bad For Good: The Very Best of Scorpions.  This shows how Scorpions have evolved over the course of three decades, from the progressive-jazz-rock in the their early days, to the raw German metal of the 70s, the pop rock of the 80s, and their experimentation of the 90s.

Pros:

- Pretty much every album is covered, which no commercially available compilation has done yet.  Most compilations have concentrated only on their RCA or Mercury years albums.

- In addition to the well known songs, there are some other not as well known songs like "20th Century Man", or "I'm Goin' Mad".

- The inside packaging features a description/comment about each song, which gives some interesting tidbits about some of the songs (such as "Cause I Love You" was another song written around the Lovedrive era).

Cons:

- For being called "Box of Scorpions", it isn't even in a box!  It is more elaborate packaging, which is nice looking, but it's not a true boxed set.

- Pretty much every real boxed set I've seen tends to contain many rarities, such as B-sides, demos, extra live cuts, etc.  Nirvana's boxed set contains mostly rare songs.  Axel Rudi Pell's compilation album "Wizard's Chosen Few" also contained a decent number of rare and new songs.  Box of Scorpions did not contain any new songs that many die-hard Scorpions fans didn't already have.  There are a few of the more "rare" or "extra" songs like "Cause I Love You", "I Can't Explain", or "Over the Top" which were only featured on previous compilation albums, but as I mentioned, many of these songs are easily obtainable.  What would have made this a better collection would have been songs like "Rock My Car", "Partners In Crime", or "She's Knocking At My Door".

- Missing songs: While this compilation does feature a wide assortment of Scorpions songs, there are a few numbers which were missed.  The most notable omission is Uli Roth's classic "The Sails of Charon".  Instead of having the studio version of "We'll Burn the Sky" (which is the worst version of this song), they should have included the Tokyo Tapes version (which is the best version I've heard, in addition to being my favorite song).  And like many compilations, many great songs will be missed, such as "Now!", "Animal Magnetism", "China White", "Living For Tomorrow", "Ship of Fools", "Crazy World", "Wild Child", "Mind Like A Tree", and list can go on and on.  Many of the songs on Box of Scorpions were released as singles, which is part of the reason that they ended up on different compilation albums.

- As another reviewer noted, the pictures inside are from the classic 80's line up.  Having some pictures of EARLY Scorpions shows, or perhaps some more recent pictures with Ralph Riekermann and James Kottak would have been nice additions.

So who is Box of Scorpions for?  This is a good collection for a person who is interested in learning more about Scorpions, to get a better feel for the band and its 3+ decades of music.  Perhaps one new fan will enjoy the Uli Roth era of music, others might prefer the 80s pop metal, or some might like the more refined or experimental edge to the Scorpions in the 90s.  But for the serious Scorpions collector, there is nothing extraordinary or amazing about this collection, except for the privilege to own it and add yet another compilation onto the already towering stack of Scorpions albums.
1052226
Certainly this re-mastered collection tops the previous "Greatest Hits" and "Best of the Box" offers.  It's definitely worth the $20 for the album.

One has to wonder, as is obligatory with any compilation representative of an artist's entire body of work, how a few Chains standards were omitted.

The biggest omission is the absence of the beautifully crafted "Down In A Hole," but also curious is the "Rain When I Die" selection over "Junk Head" from "Dirt."  Other interesting selections would be the "Sap-heavy" track inclusions while AIC's mini-masterpiece, "Jar Of Flies" seems under-represented.  "Rotten Apple," "Whale and Wasp" or "Don't Follow" could have easily been included on the ostensibly shorter second CD.  Also, though Layne's performance on the unplugged version of "Nutshell" is particularly poignant, the album version of that song (though never released as a single) is regarded by some as the band's single best track and could have been included in its original form.

Regardless of opinion of the song selection, this two-disc set is fairly comprehensive and undeniably worth the price of purchase.
2822721
As a "neophyte" Radiohead fan who just started listening to their music a couple of years ago, I have really enjoyed this "greatest hits" compilation. I actually started out with a few of their albums and then got the one-cd Best Of. I really enjoyed the heck out of that collection so when I came across this two-cd collection I grabbed it. Yes, I already had the first disc but if it was anything like that one I would have been fine with buying it again just for the second disc. And this compilation did not disappoint either.
One thing that stands out for me regarding this collection is that the sound is great. I won't compare this collection with the one-disc collection but that stands out for me. I have heard their albums and they don't sound good as this. Whoever did the re-mastering did a fine job.
As far as the second disc goes I really liked the eight track, Knives Out. The ninth track Talk Show Host is also catchy. I like the riffs on that one. The thirteenth track, True Love Waits, is one of my favorites on the second disc.
Overall, this is a great compilation for those not wanting to purchase all of Radiohead's albums. It is ideal for those who want a two-cd collection that captures most of the best of Radiohead. A "best of" collection is pretty subjective as many of Radiohead's fans fall into different categories. There are those that love their pop song, Creep. And then there are those that prefer the edgier songs like Anyone Can Play Guitar which is on the second disc of this collection. Those who prefer the edgier material would do best to get this collection over the one-cd one. For those just looking for the most popular Radiohead music as played on radio stations the one-cd collection will suffice.
202703
i must say, i don't own this cd but i own anthology and it's just awesome. anthology is back for the attack and their self-titled album combined. it's a better deal, as far as money is concerned because you get 20 songs for the regular price.  anyway, out of the 5 songs my favorites are plan b and widowmaker. they have a great ska sound. if you like the impossibles, check out their newer cd, return, and their latest EP, 4 song brick bomb.
2890820
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I just love these handy / nifty / must-own 2-fer-1 CD releases. Where (even if it's an unofficial release, as such) a band from way-back-when has two lp's reissued in their entirety on one CD. Here, you get two of the three early albums from obscure German krautrock band - Dzyan's 'Time Machine' ('73) and 'Electric Silence' ('75) - see my reviews of both. Only other Dzyan title that I haven't had a chance to check out as of yet is their 2010 'Mandala' CD. Fans of Agitation Free, Mythos and Gila would likely get a lot out of this piece.