Customer Reviews

25 Year Celebration of Mannheim Steamroller

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just picked this Anniversary Collection up. I totally love it, even though they didn't include my all time favorite M. Steamroller song (Dancing Flames) on it. It is a wonderful collection to listen to if you want to listen to M. Steamroller and can't decide which cd to listen to. I have everything Chip and the gang have ever put out. And I must add, I have never been disappointed. I recommend buying this set if you want to start experiencing the sounds of Mannheim Steamroller. Go get it now!!!!

Has it been 25 years? Yes, in the 25 years of Mannheim Steamroller, has sold more than 24 million albums - without the backing of a major label and significant radio air-play..."Fresh Aire" series pioneered the New Age and Adult Contemporary genres, and its Christmas albums comprise the best-selling series consistently topped the Billboard New Age, Catalog and Christmas charts - three are multi-platinum, one platinum and 10 others gold.

Always following his basic instincts, Chip never looked back only to the horizon, and this 2-CD-Set definitely has "happy trails" written all-over-it. Mannheim Steamroller has even managed to crack the Top Jazz Albums and Adult Contemporary charts - "Fresh Aire VI" was Top Jazz Album - where it resided for seven weeks.

A quarter of a cenury later, we're still at it...listening, collecting and anticipating each new Mannheim Steamroller release and what delights they bring...may they always charm the listeners old and new with their special magic!

Total Time: Disc One 45:45 on 12 Tracks & Disc Two 43:34 on 13 Tracks...American Gramaphone AG25-2...(1999)

I am a huge fan of the Fresh Aire Christmas series and it has become my favorite Christmas music of all time. To tell the truth though I only have a couple of other Mannheim Steamroller CDs (Classical Gas and Fresh Aire 7). The other ones I have listened to and have found that there are some numbers that I like and others that are just okay. This new collection brings out the best of Mannheim Steamroller. There is one song from 25 different CDs including one from the upcoming Fresh Aire 8 which is excellent. So if you are a huge fan or even like just a little of Mannheim Steamroller's music, you must buy this CD set.

My first listening experience with Mannheim was the purchase of Fresh Aire 7.....and I was hooked. I recently purchased the 25 Year Celebration and it is truly awesome. If these CDs were LPs, they would be worn out. The 2nd CD of the set is especially awesome with renditions of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, The Holly & The Ivy, Sonata Bach's Lunch being totally unique. Their music is a treat to the ears and calming to the soul. I have a diverse collection of music and Mannheim adds to the diversity.

18th-century rock 'n' roll? Neo-classical? Progressive electronic? Whatever you call the music of Omahan Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller, this is an adequate sampling of the music they've been churning out for the past 25 years. [At less than 90 minutes over two discs, it's not over-generous, but there are 25 tracks. (25 tracks, 25 years--get it?)]

Virtually every album from the Steamroller catalog and Davis' Day Parts series is represented. The music is at times raucus, the next moment introspective and serene (and even sometimes a bit formulaic) as it combines elements of classical music with plenty of synthesizers and percussion into its trademark pop orchestral sound.

True fans will probably already own all of the individual CDs sampled on this collection. But for the unitiated who perhaps are wondering why Steamroller has managed to sell more than 20 million albums, this is an excellent place to start. RECOMMENDED

Perfect for those who like Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas work and want to hear more of what Mannheim Steamroller has to offer. The 25th Year Celebration set takes its listeners to "Another Place," (as the song is entitled). with a wonderful integration of the greatest songs in the early Fresh Aire series with the newest work on the upcoming DVD, Fresh Aire 8. If you want the greatest songs in the Fresh Aire series (or never heard them before) and don't want to buy all the albums, this is the next best thing! For "Aireheads" and new Steamroller fans, this is a must have!

Before the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Enigma, Estampie and the Medieval Baebes started making old music new again, and at the very beginning of that nebulous and ever-changing genre of music now known as "New Age," there was Mannheim Steamroller. During the last quarter of the 20th century, the cheerfully original music of Mannheim Steamroller explored the use synthesizer voices and textures, both in popularly-styled pieces and also in a delightful form of rock/classical fusion sometimes described as "classical gas" or "eighteenth century rock `n' roll." Originally created to test the capabilities of speaker systems, and groundbreaking for their time, Chip Davis's compositions were so hard for the music industry to categorize that he had to set up his own company, American Gramaphone, to produce and market it--to the tune of over 22 million albums sold to date! This two-disc retrospective features one selection, chosen through fan voting, from each of Davis' 25 previous releases, including numbers 1 through eight of the "Fresh Aire" series, three of the Christmas albums, "Classical Gas," "Sunday Morning Coffee" 1 & 2, "Romance" 1 & 2, "Impressions," "Interludes," "Dinner," "Party," "Yellowstone," "Saving the Wildlife," "Mannheim Stemaroller Meets the Mouse" (as in Mickey)," and "To Russia With Love." There's a little bit of everything mixed into Davis' music, and while it is often, these days, labeled as "New Age," it really doesn't seem to fit into that category, save for the facts that it includes some dreamy, reflective numbers, and it utilizes synthesizers (though not exclusively, by any means). It ranges from straight pop and light jazz to bona fide classical, and electronic to acoustic, often mixing the extremes in whimsical flights of imagination. Sometimes lively, sometimes mysterious, at times brilliant, at others generically pop-like and derivative, often exciting, and occasionally downright silly, the one thing that all of Davis' compositions have in common are their bright sense of playfulness. This is music for the inner child in all of us. My personal favorites in this set are the fusion numbers, featuring harpsichords, strings and recorders in modernized interpretations of classical idioms: "Baroque-A-Nova," "Four Rows of Jacks," "Sonata Bach's Lunch" and the Christmas carols. But many of the more synthetic and space-music pieces are cool, too, and the raunchy "Chocolate Fudge" is just downright fun. The two-album set comes with an actual hardbound book, not just flimsy liner notes, and in the book are citations of the track sources and anecdotes about the recordings. So you can read through the book and decide which of Mannheim Steamroller's albums you might like to hear more of. Pick one or more, put aside your preconceived stylistic boundaries, and just have fun!

We had not heard of Mannheim Steamroller until we went to a Christmas concert where one of their pieces was played. My wife and I immediately bought their most recent CD, and later the 25 Year Celebration. Great stuff - wide variety and individuality.

You HAVE GOT TO hear this Cd (or almost any Mannheim Steamroller Cd for that matter) in 7 Channel Stereo. It's one of the few CDs (and I'm not talking about DVD-As or SVCDs) that is mixed so well that the 7 CH Stereo mode can pick up and reproduce all 7 (not 3, 4 or 5 but all 7) channels. If you don't believe me, I challenge anyone, even audiophites to but this Cd, (used if you don't want to invest much into an experiment), set your multi channel to 5 or 7 channel stereo, and raise the volume to about 90 - 92 Dbls, (careful, this is one of those HDCDs that play at about 10 Dbls higher than most Cds). Select #1 "Steamroller"; sit back and be prepared to hear sound quality that you have NEVER heard before distinctly coming from ALL 7 channels. Your next Steamroller Cd should be "The Steamroller meets the Mouse"; Start with "Davey Crocket (sounds hokie doesn't it?), (all 7 Chs. morph from an individual back and forth 7 way dual to a full separated blend), next "Under the Sea" (you will swear that your about to be drenched by a wave), Mulan is very cool also. This is a FULL 3D sound field. Now my 7.2 system may be more exotic than most, but this has got to sound awesome on even a "Home Theater in a Box" level system.

Awesome. I am a long-time fan of Mannheim Steamroller's, and this is a great collection of their music. To Chip, Jackson, and Almeda, Woohoo. If you haven't heard this album, you need to!