Customer Reviews

Ain't Ever Satisfied: The Steve Earle Collection

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4 star:		(1)
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This compilation of earlier Steve Earle material should convince skeptics that country music goes beyond the cliched, maudlin drinking songs, and it doesn't have anything to do with Garth or Shania. Earle's music acknowledges his rock and blues influences without catering to easy marketability--the closest he'll ever come to VH-1 will be the prison concert once aired on MTV, and we'll never see him bunched up with the Eagles wannabes on CMT. To get a solid idea of how Earle adapts his influences, listen to how "Copperhead Road" alone offers a condensed evolution of country music, from Celtic roots and bluegrass to a hard-driving, electric outlaw sound. Consider AIN'T EVER SATISFIED an Earle primer, where he's mastering the talent that flourishes more consistently on TRAIN A'COMIN' and the later material. If you love Emmylou, miss Gram, revere Willy, and honor Possum and the Hag, you'll be grateful that this album is on CD--you'd wear out copy after copy of lp and cassette.

By the way, AIN'T EVER SATISFIED contains all of the material previously released on ESSENTIAL STEVE EARLE, plus a whole lot more. The live cover of Springsteen's "State Trooper" is a treat.

Back in 1986 I purchased the debut albums from three country artists that I thought were going to help put some integrity back in country music. Those three artists were Dwight Yoakam (Guitars, Cadilacs, etc., etc.), Randy Travis (Storms of Life) and Steve Earle (Guitar Town). While they didn't succeed in eliminating the pop excesses of what passes for country these days, they all provided a reminder of what quality country music could and should sound like.

Of the three, Earle has had the rockiest journey over the intervening fifteen years. But it's only made Earle's music all the more honest and effective. In fact, his last three albums have been among the best of his career.

This two-CD set covers most of the highlights from his five albums for MCA between 1986 and 1991. It duplicates all of the 1993 single-disc collection, The Essential Steve Earle, and adds 15 additional tracks including live recordings of "West Nashville Boogie," "She's About a Mover," "Dead Flowers" and the Bruce Springsteen cover of "State Trooper" which was previously only available as an EP. It also includes all but two of the tracks from Guitar Town, arguably his best MCA album, along with the strongest tracks from the other three studio albums: Exit O, Copperhead Road and The Hard Way.

Earle can at turns be traditional country on songs like "Hillbilly Highway," then rock out on a song like "Copperhead Road," and then join the Pogues for the Irish folk-influenced "Johnny Come Lately." And it all makes for enjoyable listening. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This two-disk set has replaced "The Essential Steve Earle" as a greatest hits package covering the early part of his career (1985-1990) when MCA was trying to figure out how to market the talented but trying Mr. Earle. I would like to thank the thief who stole my copy of that CD in a burglary for encouraging me to purchase this one. I can only hope that you have the taste to appreciate what you stole.

Steve Earle is a good musician and an astonishing songwriter. Bruce Springsteen is probably his only contemporary in American popular music to have such a lyrical facility with American vernacular.

The songs in this package tend to be narrower both stylistically and thematically than Earle's later work, which, depending on one's taste could be a good or a bad thing. The cuts on the first disk, in particular, largely taken from his first two albums, are much in the mold of mainstream Nashville production of the time - heartbreak, white lines, stadium drums, and overdubbed guitars galore. In evidence is the populism that would later turn more explicitly political (again, a good or a bad thing depending on one's perspective).

The second disk is more transitional - by this point MCA's country division in Nashville had given up dealing with the notoriously difficult Earle and transferred his contract to the rock division in LA. Less formulaic rock producers and deepening personal problems lent themselves to more musically diverse, darker, songs, and by the set closing live recording of "West Nashville Boogie" from 1990, Earle is howling desperate lyrics over the John Lee Hooker/ZZ Top "LaGrange" riff.

This, in turn, would give way to jail and drug rehab, followed by an artistic and personal renewal in the latter half of the 1990s. Highly recommended as an introduction to Earle's music.

Like Dwight Yoakum, Steve Earle is a true blue country artist who preferrs to work outside the orbit of Nashville. Earle's gritty guitar chops and confessional storytelling remind you of a rural Bruce Springsteen (a point he brings home by covering The Boss's "State Trooper") on this album. "I Ain't Ever Satisfied" is an excellent comprehensive anthology of the first decade or so of Earle's career. It is interesting to hear the transistion from disc one to disc two as Earle's songwriting and storytelling became even more ambitious. Most of the classic album "Copperhead Road" is included on the second disc. For those who have yet to be initiated to the man and his music, this is a great place to start.

Steve Earle has been around for a long time. An early highlight of his career was that one of his songs was scheduled to be recorded by Elvis Presley (Elvis didn't show up for the session) Though he's been around Nasville since 1974, working as a songwriter and touring as bass player for Guy Clark, his 1986 MCA debut album GUITAR TOWN entered the charts at the same time as debut albums by two other pioneers of the "New Country" movement, Dwight Yoakam and Randy Travis. Rarely if ever does a greates hits package do justice to a musician's career, particularly ones released while the artist is still alive and working. This collection is very much an exception. This is a great collection that nicely summarises Earle's career 1986-1991.

For his earlier stuff, you're not going to get a better compilation on two cds. For your money, this is the one to get. It has virtually all the tracks from "The Essential Steve Earle" and "Fearless Heart". All the classics like "Guitar Town", "Copperhead Road", "Nowhere Road", etc. plus a live version of "Dead Flowers" from "Shut Up and Die..." They're all here and I know I've mentioned this before, but if you're new to Steve, this is the best place that I can think of to start without breaking your bank.

Now the stuff that he's done in the last ten years, that's a different story. Once you've broken this one in a little, then pick up "Train a Comin'", "I Feel Alright" and "El Corazon". Let those sink in and then work yourself up from there. Then again, if you're already a fan, then you know all of this.

greatest musicians and songwriters around. If you like that kind of music that doesn't fit into a cubbyhole you should check it out. Steve Earle combines rock, bluegrass, country, blues, etc. into his own unique sound. His voice is distinctive and expressive. From the upbeat "Guitar Town" to the sad, "My Old Friend the Blues" to the romantic "Fearless Heart" to the funny "Week of Living Dangerously" he covers every feeling or situation and his lyrics are heartfelt and meaningful--never pretentious or ambiguous.

This is a great overview of his work up to the early nineties. After you buy this, you'll want to own all his albums--he hasn't disappointed me yet. And if you ever get a chance to see him live, don't hesitate to go!

This is my first Steve Earle album. I became interested in Earle's music on the endorsement of Shawn Colvin (who does a wonderful take of "Someday" on her "Cover Girl" album, by the way) and this seemed a great way to get familiar. It is.

This two CD set aptly illuminates the musical changes that have taken place in Steve Earle since his earliest recordings. He certainly has two discs worth of wonderful, and often fantastic, material and this set does not disappoint.

If you haven't decided which Steve Earle album to buy first, I can certainly recommend this one.

Pretty good survey but not enough music to justify the price. And, everyone makes such a big deal about the 4 live cuts, but they've all been released before. "State Trooper" is from Guitar Town; and the other 3 are from Shut Up and Die Like An Aviator, which at 77 minutes, is a good deal.

An almost complete compilation of his work. A great CD to own.