Nice overview, but get the full albums instead
590468
This compilation is a nice overview of the first three Jon and Vangelis albums, but not all the tracks are the full versions - in short, I recommend getting the albums instead of this disc.  You can always make your own version (without the edits) by programming a playlist on your ipod or on your computer from the albums.  I didn't hear any differences between the sound quality of this disc and the albums, so there's nothing here you wouldn't have otherwise.
3703205
Don't bother if you have all the albums like I do; there isn't anything new here so if you buy this then you are spending a lot of money on an okay box and reproduced cover art soft cases, basically. Box Set releases like this are what gives bands/labels a bad name ... not sure if it was cleared with Pink Floyd but if I was asked to check this in my music catalog, I would of added some of the STILL unreleased tracks officially. Don't Bother If You Already Have Their Complete Album Discography! Pink Floyd is one of my favorite and quite influential with my own music so I'm glad I DIDN'T purchase this.
4906872
comprehensive survey, though missing a few key songs
2856989
This book has a similar look and feel for those familiar with 1001 Albums with great pictures, nice format and layout, and interesting song and artist background. I found this to be a great resource for (re-)exploring both well known songs and lesser known nuggets.  The selections cover a broad range of periods and styles.  Many are obvious choices such as Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

I'd caution against expecting either the 1001 or "10,001 to Download" to be a definitive "best" song list.  The variety of editors bring some great choices together, however such a task is just not possible, nor the intent, but this does mean that you will find some expected songs missing.  Not making either list includes some of my personal favorites from Michael Jackson (Billie Jean), the Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter), though about 30 Stones' songs make the 10,001, or Allman Brothers (Midnight Rider), or Joy Division (New Dawn Fades), while room for five Spice Girls songs on the 10,001 seemed generous in this context.

All in all, this doesn't knock it down from 5-stars for me, I know and listen to the songs I like without this book, but it gives me plenty to explore and enjoy, which is just what I had hoped for.
660828
I am just filling some blanks in my music with albums that I already have in vinyl when it first came out. I had most of these song from later compilations, but there are always those side B songs you miss when you don't have the full album as originally released.
496323
Gatefold is really nice. Sounds decent, but I'm not sure the bass drums come out as well as digital versions I've heard, as odd as that sounds. Speaking of, it also comes with MP3 album download you can obtain from the record label website, but to this date, I have not been able to extract the songs from the zip folder.  So that's really kind of a bummer.
3555017
This entire series from England, which features more than 60 overviews of various record labels in the States and England, has lots of music at a great price. But it's sometimes irritating when they leave off obvious hits from the period covered, and then add insult to injury by putting on the B-side but not the successful song. The sound on all of them is good and the liner notes are usually accurate, but it would be nice if they spent a little more time getting more hits and less filler on these things.
4298741
I recently got this collection as a gift ( a relative ordered it for me; originally, I mistakenly said that I bought it), and I must admit I'm a bit disappointed. Don't get me wrong --- I appreciate that I got it, and there are a lot of good tracks here (even a few great ones), but there are too many live tracks for my taste. I would have preferred to more "studio" tracks. I have to admit that I'm not really big on live material in general. The live performances here aren't bad, but I usually find "studio" recordings to be far better than live ones. Of the "studio" tracks here, I especially enjoy the alternate mix of "Sub-Rosa Subway," the single mix of "We're Off You Know," the instrumental mix of "Routine Day" (that one's downright beautiful, to my ears), and the "Suna Sunaru" mix (as the liner notes call it) of "Silly Boys." The CD closes with an "unadvertized" version of "Hope" (which, as someone kindly pointed out, is not the version that was on the 2-CD Sun Set collection, as I originally thought it might have been). This CD was worth getting, but because of the live tracks, I have to give it just three stars. If it had featured more "studio" material --- of the same or better quality --- and fewer or no live tracks, I probably would have given it four if not five stars.
685313
I suppose there's two obvious ways to put together a box set for a band with a catalog as large as Yes has.  One way would be to strictly include the most popular/successful songs from each of their albums in order to please casual fans of the group.  The second way might be to rely heavily on unreleased and rare live material in order to please the diehard fans.  Of course, you can also try to do both.  And that's what it appears this boxset tried to do, but it kind of shoots itself in the foot.
The choices of material from the studio albums is for the most part excellent.  The first Yes boxset, _YesYears_ left off some pivotal Yes moments such as "South Side of the Sky", "The Gates of Delirium", "To Be Over", and "Turn of the Century," which are all included here.  In addition, a lot of Yes music has been released since 1991 and Disc Five is dedicated to these years.  Disc Five reminds people that Yes still were making good music in the 90s like "The Calling", "I Am Waiting", and "Homeworld."
The sound quality on the studio material is excellent; the unreleased tracks are another story.  For the most part, they are pretty underwhelming, with only "Richard" (taken from the _Tormato_ sessions) seeming like it could've realistically appeared on a Yes album.  "Tango" and "Never Done Before" are taken from the 1979 Paris sessions before Anderson and Wakeman left and it's a good thing for everyone involved that they did as these songs are not a good representation of what each musician was capable of.  "Crossfire" is a short little instrumental piece that is nothing special.  The alternate version of "Fist of Fire" contains more Howe than the version on _ABWH_, but this is not a good thing as it does support theories that when recording his parts for _ABWH_ and _Union_, he was more or less "soloing all over the place."  "Last Train" from the _Magnification_ sessions is also not good, and actually very close to embarassing.  I wonder why they included some of these unreleased songs on the set as I really can't see anyone thinking they're very good.  It's unfortunate that Yes chose these unreleased songs to put on the boxset.  Yes is known for having better songs that have not appeared on studio albums.  I think the biggest omissions from this set is the Drama-era lineup's two songs "We Can Fly From Here" and "Go Through This," both of which have generally been very highly regarded by those that have heard demos.  There's also the excellent "Vultures" from the ABWH-sessions that has also been higly regarded by those who have heard it.  A better idea might've been to on every disc include maybe one *good* unrleased song and one rare live performance.  That would've been an easy way to please casual fans and diehards alike.  As far as some *good* unreleased moments - "The Revealing Science of God" contains about a minute and a half ambient keys/guitar intro not found on the original version and "I Would Have Waited Forever" is slightly different from the original version with an extended outro.
Regardless, I still rate this boxset favorably as it *is* Yes music and it is great to have their entire career thus far in one set.  The booklet inside is also very, very good - with tons of rare photos and articles by Cameron Crowe, Bill Martin, and Chris Welch.  Members of Primus, Tool, King's X, and Phish are also quoted and offer a little insight into how influential Yes has been on them.  If you're looking to be blown away by the unreleased material, you will be very disappointed.  But if you're looking to get a lot of Yes music for a reasonable price, you really can't go wrong with this.
2473289
This was marketed as a best of album, but it really isn't in the true sense of it all, in fact, it's more a collection of B-Sides and Rarities than anything. Different versions, remixes, edits and compilation appearances make up the majority of this CD, so while it is not a true "Best Of", it is a nice little addition to the completist's library. While I don't feel that some of the versions are nearly as good as the originals, it is still kind of nice to a different take on an old favorite. This CD should definitely not be used to get into the band, as it is not a good representation of their career, it is however a nice collection of unreleased and tough to find stuff. Recommended to fans.
116003
A good selection for the casual not-really-fan who wants the music, but doesn't want to buy a lot of different albums.
2513534
I really enjoyed this album but I would've preferred if the track listing would be much different. Most of the tracks are from his albums released in 2004 and 2006. Now that doesn't mean that the albums sucked or anything. However, the older material is just so much more enjoyable than the newer. I really enjoyed "First Of The Gang To Die" and "Irish Blood, English Heart" among others, but the standout tracks were definitely "Suedehead" "Everyday Is Like Sunday" "The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get" and the other older songs. If you want the best of the new with a hint of the past then I would recommend this album for you, but if you want the best of the past then look elsewhere.
2967063
This collection of tracks spans the brief early career of the Art of Noise.  It takes material from their days with ZTT Records and presents the listener with all the odds and ends that never made it onto the studio albums.  The good news is, strong fans of the Art of Noise will enjoy hearing these alternate versions, outtakes, and incomplete bits and pieces.  The bad news is, this is a limited set of material:  "Into Battle with the Art of Noise" and "(Who's Afraid Of?) the Art of Noise" were good albums for their time, but here we have four discs' worth of the same 10-12 songs.  Tracks titled with unusual names like "Klimax", "The Focus of Satisfaction", and "In Case We Sneezed" are not new or unreleased tracks per se:  they are alternate versions of songs like "Moments in Love", "Close (to the Edit)", and of course "Beat Box".  Each ranges anywhere from half a minute to almost 11 minutes long, with the odd parts ending abruptly because they are unfinished pieces.

Much as I am a long-time fan of the Art of Noise, this much of the same was hard to get through in one sitting.  If you're an AoN fan who is mix-minded you should find plenty of raw material to make all new versions of your favorite classics.  However, this isn't the kind of boxed set you want to spin at a party:  people will start asking you if your player is stuck.  Consider this a nice addition to your collection, but don't plan on playing it time and again.  And if you are new to The Art of Noise, I recommend trying their studio albums first--the Art of Noise were often ahead of their time, and most of them are excellent in and of themselves.  My personal favorites are "Below the Waste" and "In Visible Silence".
2378284
Some notes about the collection itself. The songs are organized into "disks" within the Amazon player. Unfortunately, there are no disk titles, just disk 1 through disk 27. Album labels would be welcome. Also, it fails to export to Windows Media Player, I got a total of 5 songs from the export. Not a biggie since you can easily import the folder from within WMP itself. Therein lies the other problem - this is recognized as one gigantic album and I get 27 songs no1, followed by 27 no2, etc. There'll be quite a bit of work to create suitable playlists so this becomes useable in WMP.

Of course even with the above issues one can't argue with the price, so I'm still giving it full 5 stars. Still, I believe people should have an idea what they are getting.

UPDATE: When importing in WMP all the song names are intact, but there's no album information. I went over all the tracks and with the help of Wikipedia matched them to their respective albums. I had to update the metadata for every track and change its album info. WMP helped most of the time finding an entry in its database, but the 3 Backtracks disks only had shortened versions there so these I had to update entirely by hand. I also had to change the genre tags since for some reason Amazon thinks AC/DC is Alternative music... All in all it took me about 3 hours and I'm now a happy camper.
39694
I was amazed to see this album on vinyl for only $7. However, when I got it, it wasn't the whole album, but rather 3/4 of the album. I think the add is very misleading, as it states that you are gettign the entire album. However, 3/4 of this amazing album or $7 is still a great deal, and it contains most of the best songs on the album (not that there is a bad one). Love the whole album, but was disappointed that I was mislead.
1928383
This copy of this album also includes the ep "Four Songs" which was released right before they first album was. While I'm saddened that they will not rerelease this ep as it was, I am glad they included the songs on this import. Buy this album if you want some great songs! Heres my review on the "Four Songs" ep. 14. Operation Spirit-(Also on the first album)15. Good Pain- (Also on the first album)16. Heaven Wore A Shirt- This song was really not super. It's a Live formalla song. Lacks interesting twists. 85%17. Negation-This song is sortof like track 9 on the first album. Its a somewhat different writing for Live. They write from a somewhat negative side which makes it more interesting. 95%  If you like this album: Buy the First album. You may also like to buy "The distance to here".
3490280
There have been innumerable Motorhead collections over the years, but this is one of the few that attempts to mix old with the new. On this collection, all the classics are present, and some newer material is thrown in as well. Unfortunately, there are some throw-away tracks, mainly the Girlscool and Headgirl tracks. (To be honest, these tracks are pretty much worthless.) Some live tracks are meshed in and fit well, and the newer songs help to add some variety to the old-scool stuff.

I would recommend this collection to listeners looking to get a nice, cheap collection of some of Motorhead's best just for the sake of getting into the band. But if you're wanting the prime collection of older material, save up some extra dough and buy "No Remorse" or "Stone Deaf Forever."