Customer Reviews

Anthology (Dig)

5 star:		(22)
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3 star:		(3)
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Carly Simon straddled the world between folk and pop music in the early 1970s and gradually emerged from the shadow of other folk titans to become a pop singer of verve and moment, earning herself a place in the pantheon of very successful singers like Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, and a number of others like Carol King who were on the pop charts and in the folk clubs earlier in their career. This album is a wonderful summary of the best of her efforts throughout her career, including those early years. From her breakthrough hits like -That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be- and -Anticipation- to later smash singles like -Loving You Is the Right Thing To Do- and -You're So Vain- (rumored to be written about everyone from James Taylor to Mick Jagger, but more likely a joke aimed at actor Warren Beatty) is all here.

This collection successfully gathers the best of those early years in one place, and then adds to it those superb follow-on efforts with a second CD that reprises her second stage efforts with another collection of more adult-centered pop hits. Even though I usually prefer to sample an artist in context in their early albums, even I have to admit this is a great comprehensive overview of the collective efforts from Carly Simon. There are a lot of good songs here, like the terrific -Legend In Your Own Time- about then beau James Taylor, and the rocking -Mockingbird-, a duet done with Taylor.

Indeed, there are other interesting, provocative, and beautiful selections here, including my own personal favorite, -I Haven't Got Time For The Pain-. This is a great look at a fascinating artist who later made a terrific comeback album called -Coming Around Again-, with hits such as the title cut, as well as superb numbers like -The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of- to regain her audience and popularity, which she used to great advantage in the years since, with a number of hits included here from -Better Not Tell Her- to -All I Want Is You-, and from -It Happens Every Day- to -Like A River-. It is one of her best and most representative greatest hits albums yet, and it gives us an interesting vantage point with which to understand her better. This is a terrific greatest hits album by an artist who is often under-appreciated. This is one I heartily recommend. Enjoy!

Carly Simon's two disc Anthology contains forty songs -- and all but one was previously available on compact disc (the new track is the live recording of "Touched by the Sun"). So you own Warner Brothers' The Best of Carly Simon Volume I (single disc), you own Arista's three disc boxed set Clouds In My Coffee and you own Arista's Greatest Hits Live (single disc) -- what do you need this one for?

It's an appropriate question. Even more so if you're also someone who owns all of Simon's studio albums. Why buy Anthology for any reason other than to keep the collection complete? Especially at this price?

There is a wonderful essay in the booklet that comes with the Anthology. There are some interesting photos. And?

For me, the deciding factor was all the talk of the superior sound quality. The reviewers are not mistaken, there is a world of difference in the sound quality of the previous versions (whether they're songs from the seventies, eighties or nineties). I don't think it's just an issue of remastering. I think a number of songs have been remixed to bring tracks that were previously buried in the mix more to the foreground.

This isn't a make it or break it test for Carly fans. Having this album doesn't make you a better fan and not having doesn't make you a worse one. But having it does give you a new perspective on recordings you previously felt you had heard.

Are there any complaints to be made? Sure. It would be easy to point out that the B-side to "Give Me All Night," a wonderful song called "Sleight of Hand," is still not available on disc.
Despite a boxed set and now a two disc anthology, the only way to hear this song remains vinyl. Want to hear her song to the mini-series Sins? Well you'll still have try to find it on an import CD. Don't believe import's even an option for her song from the film Torchlight. And in my group of Carly Simon listeners, we're all agreed that "Touched by the Sun" was not the song performed at Grand Central that needed to find it's way onto compact disc. (The majority weighs in on her radical reworking of "We Have No Secrets.")

That's song selection. And it's certainly valid to comment on what this could have been. But let's deal with what it is: a Simon album you need to hear with your own ears. As with her other release this year, Christmas is Almost Here, in my circle many were surprised to hear the actual CDs having heard samples online. The online samples do not begin to demonstrate the superior sound quality to this collection.

Time's are tough and album prices continue to rise. So if the cost seems too high to go into blindly for what may be thirty-nine songs you already have (plus one new live track), try to find someone who has Anthology already. Listen to it and I'm willing to bet you'll decide quickly that this anthology is worth the cost.

I don't know whether it says more about the quality of music today or my age, but this is the first CD I have purchased for myself in years. If, like me, you are tired of paying $15 to hear two familiar tracks, you will be pleased with the bounty of music you get for your money with "Anthology". Although it is a CD set, it is more like two separate CDs-each one loaded to the brim with good music.

The first CD features most of Carly's popular hits. Memory evoking songs such as "Anticipation", "You're So Vain", "Attitude Dancing", and "Legend in Your Own Time" will have you fighting (unsuccessfully) the against the desire to sing along. Some later hits ("Nobody Does It Better and "Vengence") sound good too.

The second CD features some songs lesser-known than the first, but can still stand on its own. Several of Carly's later songs ("Let the River Run","Better Not Tell Her", "Coming Around Again", and "Love of My Life") were on the radio for too brief a time and in my opinion received too little airplay. Some of these titles I did not recognize initially, but were immediately familiar to me when I heard them. You may have the same experience.

As an added bonus there were several tracks in this set that I had not heard before. After listening to "It Happens Everday", "Julie Through the Glass", and "At Times in My Head" I found them growing on me easily.

I particularly liked the way the songs were arranged in chronological order. It made the set seem like a soundtrack to Carly's life. The songs on the first CD tend be about new love, relationships and heartbreak. The later songs on the second CD are about marriage ("Coming Around Again"), family ("Two Sisters", "Love of My Life") and even death ("The River").

The sets packaging and accompanying notes are worth mentioning. Suffice it to say there is a lot there. Reference info is provided for each track. Also included is a lengthy but entertaining essay from a die-hard Carly fan. What he writes will strike a familiar chord if you are old enough to remember when the songs on the first CD were "new".

In summary, this a very satisfying CD set. I purchased it over a week ago and am still listening at least once a day.

Leave it to Rhino Records to release the definitive Carly Simon collection. The 1995 Carly Simon boxed set inexplicably left off several hit songs, and did not present the songs in chronological order. Including previously unreleased songs and obscure album tracks, the boxed set's appeal was geared more towards the hard core collector. This compilation wisely includes all of Carly Simon's top 40 hits, as well as many familiar album tracks, presented in chronological order. The sound quality is superb, the packaging is great, the liner notes are entertaining as well as informative, and the photos are exquisite.

"That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" was Carly's breakthrough hit and the obvious choice to lead off the first disc. Its matter of fact reasoning for getting married is just as relevant today as when it was first released. Mick Jagger's background vocals on the #1 hit "You're So Vain" never sounded so strikingly clear. The confessional "We Have No Secrets" hints that honesty may not always be the best policy. Carly's growling vocals on "Vengeance" proved that she could rock out with the best of them. "Come Upstairs" sounds as playful as it does seductive, and is one of my favorite songs. "My Romance" is a beautiful rendition of the classic Rogers and Hart song. The liner notes boast that "Let The River Run" is perhaps the best song ever written for a movie. While that statement is subject to debate, there is no question that all of Carly Simon's best songs to date are included in this anthology.

I would be interested to see what the sales figures are for the different sized Carly Simon collections. "Anthology," a two-CD collection that offers 40 songs from 1971 to 2000 is the middle range set, in between one of your basic hits collections and the "Clouds in My Coffee" box set. Then again, you could go out and pick up all of Simon's individual albums as well. However, I have little doubt that if these two CDs were released separately it would be the first one, representing Simon's work before 1980 and including all of her hits with the exception of "Let the River Run," which is on the second disc. I know that for my money they could have thrown that track on the other disc and I would have been more than content. It is that Oscar winning song and Simon's comeback hit "Nobody Does It Better" that are the two tracks you would want to have beyond what was on the original "The Best of Carly Simon" album from 1975.

Looking back on her recording career it is clear that Carly Simon is one of those artists who came in like a lion and is going out like a lamb. In the early 1970s she emerged as one of the most popular of the confessional singer/songwriters starting with "That's the Way I've Always Heard it Should Be," a moody little number attacking the idea of marriage. Her biggest hit, "You're So Vain," was of a similar tenor but today her most recognizable tune would have to be "Anticipation," since it is used to sell ketchup, with the James Bond theme song "Nobody Does It Better" being second (although that was written by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager, not Simon herself). However, I usually thought her second level hits, songs like "The Right Thing to Do" and "Haven't Got Time for the Pain" were the better songs.


In 1980 Simon collapsed on stage while performing and everything seemed to change. Since then she has released about as many cover albums as she has albums of original material, although her most recent release, "The Bedroom Tapes" hints at the possibility of a revitalized writing career. Consequently, the second disc in this collection is less folk-rock and more adult contemporary. The collection contains all previously released material, although some of the tracks are from film soundtracks and one was heard previously only on the "Live at Grand Central" video. It would have been nice if they had gone back to some of Simon's recordings before she signed with Elektra, when she was part of the Simon Sisters (Lucy Simon was the composer of the superb Broadway musical "The Secret Garden"). Ultimately, I think "Anthology" suffers as a choice because for those who like the early Simon, there is too much of the later here and for those who enjoy all of the stages in her musical career, you might as well go for the third disc and pick up "Clouds in My Coffee."

I am a HUGE Carly Simon fan, and while I was happy to see a comprehensive collection covering Carly's expansive career of hits, too many major songs were missing from this collection, and too many unnecessary songs were added, to make this anthology definitve. Sad, because it is probably the collection that most will turn to first to get an initial Carly collection going, but they will be missing out on many of Carly's key tracks...

While this easily could have been a three disc set, Carly has had a box set done (the superior "Clouds In My Coffee," which places the songs in thematic discs, not chronological order), I decided to make my own Carly Anthology and include the songs I felt best represented her career. I also took Anthology's approach to leave the collection as a two-disc set and present the songs in the order to which they were released.Here's my collection:

DISC 1:
1) That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be
2) Anticipation
3) Legend In Your Own Time
4) Julie Through the Glass
5) Angel from Montgomery
6) You're So Vain
7) We Have No Secrets
8) The Right Thing to Do
9) Night Owl
10) Mockingbird
11) I Haven't Got Time for the Pain
12) Attitude Dancing
13) Waterfall
14) It Keeps You Running
15) Libby (Another Passenger)
16) Nobody Does It Better
17) You Belong to Me
18) Boys In the Trees
19) Devoted to You
20) Vengeance
21) Never Been Gone

DISC 2:
1) Spy
2) We're So Close
3) Jesse
4) Not a Day Goes By
5) Why
6) Hello Big Man
7) My New Boyfriend
8) Coming Around Again
9) The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
10) All I Want Is You
11) Do the Walls Come Down?
12) Let the River Run
13) Time After Time
14) Better Not Tell Her
15) Didn't I?
16) Love of My Life
17) Like a River
18) Touched By the Sun
19) So Many Stars


I think this makes a much better collection. I have reserved many of my favorite Carly non-hits for a third disc, but these best represent her popular favorites. I can't believe Rhino put out this Anthology and didn't include "Libby," "We're So Close," "Hello Big Man," "Didn't I?" and "So Many Stars" - an act which is criminal since these are among Carly's greatest songs she's written.I wish someone would release a complete definitive collection of Carly's movie songs. Carly has written enough music for movies to fill a entire cd. Also, there are many unreleased studio recordings and b-sides throughout Carly's career that would make a great collection. And it's a damn shame that "Hello Big Man" and "The Bedroom Tapes" are out of print, they are two of Carly's strongest albums.

As it stands, do not look at this collection as a "definitive" set of Carly's best. If you're a fan, make your own collection. If you're just getting acquainted with Carly's wonderful music, start with the "Clouds..." box set and delve further...

I don't know whether it says more about the quality of music today or my age, but this is the first CD I have purchased for myself in years. If, like me, you are tired of paying $15 to hear two familiar tracks, you will be pleased with the bounty of music you get for your money with "Anthology". Although it is a CD set, it is more like two separate CDs-each one loaded to the brim with good music.

The first CD features most of Carly's popular hits. Memory evoking songs such as "Anticipation", "You're So Vain", "Attitude Dancing" and "Legend in Your Own Time" will have you fighting (unsuccessfully) the against the desire to sing along. Some later hits ("Nobody Does It Better and "Vengence") sound good too.

The second CD features some songs lesser-known than the first, but can still stand on its own. Several of Carly's later songs ("Let the River Run","Better Not Tell Her", "Coming Around Again", and "Love of My Life") were on the radio for too brief a time and in my opinion received too little airplay. Some of these titles I did not recognize initially, but were immediately familiar to me when I heard them. You may have the same experience.

As an added bonus there were several tracks in this set that I had not heard before. After listening to "It Happens Everday", "Julie Through the Glass", and "At Times in My Head" I found them growing on me easily.

I particularly liked the way the songs were arranged in chronological order. It made the set seem like a soundtrack to Carly's life. The songs on the first CD tend be about new love, relationships and heartbreak. The later songs on the second CD are about marriage ("Coming Around Again"), family ("Two Sisters", "Love of My Life") and even death ("The River").

The sets packaging and accompanying notes are worth mentioning. Suffice it to say there is a lot there. Reference info is provided for each track. Also included is a lengthy but entertaining essay from a die-hard Carly fan. What he writes will strike a familiar chord if you are old enough to remember when the songs on the first CD were "new".

In summary, this a very satisfying CD set. I purchased it over a week ago and am still listening at least once a day.

The one thing I love about this Anthology set is how it goes from year to year.You can hear the growth of this Artist with every track,and remember a special time in your life,and bring back all the wonderfull memories."THESE ARE THE GOOD OLD DAYS." If you have Carly's Box Set,"Clouds in my Coffee,"you will find alot of newer cuts on this 2 CD collection."Attitude Dancing(One of my favorites)"In Times of my head,Waterfall,Come Back Home,Come Up Stairs,and alot of Carly's recordings after 1995.I just wished alot of other tracks were on this set,"Were So Close,"(My All Time favorite song of Carlys)"The Carter Family,Melt My Heart,Half A Chance,One Love Stand,The Three of us in the Dark,Anyone but me,Our Affair,and "So Many Stars,"but with so many great songs from Carly Simon,you can't go wrong with this wonderfull 2 CD Anthology Collection.

My main reason for reviewing this CD is that the track listing here does not include the song "Film Noir", which is actually the 16th track on Disc 2.

Aside from that fact, this collection is great music, spanning Carly Simon's entire career. All of her big 70's hits are included on Disc 1: "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" through "Jesse". While this disc is my favorite of the two, Disc 2 also includes a lot of pretty good songs from the 80s and 90s, including hits like "Why", "Coming Around Again", and "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of". Simon was, and is, a top-notch songwriter and maker-of-music. She has a real talent both for writing good lyrics, and for coming up with great melodies and tunes. And, in my opinion, she maintains her standards of excellence through the 80s and into the 90's and beyond!

As for the sound quality fo this recording, I have reasonably good-quality equipment for listening to music, and the sound of these two discs seems excellent ot me. The sound is nice, full, clear, and clean.

Another collection to consider is the less expensive, remastered single-CD "Reflections: Carly Simon's Greatest Hits", which also spans her entire career, but concentrates on her big hits. But if you want to explore Carly Simon's work more extensively (for goodies like "Waterfall", "Attitude Dancing", "Older Sister", and "We Have No Secrets", "Why", etc.), then the double-disc "Anthology" is probably the one to buy. "Anthology" is definitely worth the $29-$30. However, if all you really need is the radio hits, then maybe you're better off buying "Reflections".

Lastly, I'd like to comment that I've already purchased a few Rhino compilations (Monkees, Black Sabbath), and they seem to be making a habit of putting out excellent compilations, well-remastered and with great packaging/booklets/liner notes. Keep it up, Rhino!

Carly Simon - with her distinctive alto - has been churning out quality music for over thirty years. The talented singer-songwriter's first career encompassing retrospective, the three-disc box set Clouds In My Coffee (1995), was not well organized and left off a lot of key tracks. This double-disc, forty-track ANTHOLOGY had the chance to make amends and while it is an improvement (it is chronologically organized, unlike the box set), there are still key tracks missing at the expense of insignificant efforts.

Simon's '70s Elektra hits like "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be, "Anticipation," "You're So Vain," and "You Belong To Me" dominate the first disc, with some subpar album tracks like the shrill "One More Time," the overly precious "Julie Through The Glass," and the tin pan icky "Older Sister" interspersed. Their spots should have been filled by Simon's haunting single "It Keeps You Running" and the grandiose "Libby" from ANOTHER PASSENGER, the melodic "Tranquillo" from BOYS IN THE TREES, as well as SPY's spunky title track and its dysfunctional ballad "We're So Close" (perhaps Simon's best composition). In 1980, Simon moved to Warner Brothers Records and disc one concludes with her first hit there "Jesse," along with the album's title track COME UPSTAIRS.

Disc two leads off with a few more early '80s Warner Brothers tracks, including the Chic-produced, reggae delight "Why" and the ponderous dud "Orpheus" (which should have been replaced by it's A-side, the hot n' horny "You Know What To Do"). Her one and only album for Columbia, 1985's SPOILED GIRL, is represented here by "Come Back Home" (probably the least offensive song on that horrid album). In 1987, Simon moved to Arista and experienced a career resurgence, much like that experienced by other middle-aged Arista arrivals Dionne Warwick and Aretha Franklin. The first Arista album COMING AROUND AGAIN was one of Simon's strongest ever and it is well-represented here by its four singles, including the reflective title track and the enchanting "Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of."

At Arista, Simon was allowed to branch out in a lot of directions. She turned to film scoring - quite successfully - including her enclosed Oscar winner "Let The River Run" from WORKING GIRL and the theme for LOVE OF MY LIFE. She also made a nice album of standards, MY ROMANCE, represented here by its lovely title track. I would have liked to see more material from her 90s album HAVE YOU SEEN ME LATELY (only the hit "Better Not Tell Her" is found here - no "Holding Me Tonight") and LETTERS NEVER SENT (just "Like A River" and a live "Touched By The Sun" are enclosed) while I probably could have done without any tracks from FILM NOIR and THE BEDROOM TAPES (which close this collection). The end result is a lot of great recordings surrounded by some mediocre stuff. It's a frustrating listening experience, because the lineup could have been so much better.