Customer Reviews

Babes in Arms

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

 

 

This fifteen track disc is a nifty collection of remixes,demos,
and uncensored edits from MC 5's lead guitarist Wayne Kramer's
own private vault. All these cuts were recorded from 1966-71.
Their other guitarist was the late Fred 'Sonic' Smith, who sings
lead on the pleasant-souding "Shaking Street".I sincerely hope
that my copy doesn't wear out 'cause I tend to play it quite
often.Simply love the TOTALLY ripping uncensored "Kick Out The
Jams....Mutha.......".
Vocalist Rob Tyner sounds like he's having the time of his life.
Also enjoyed the wailing guitar line on "Gold" and not to
mention their moving cover of Van Morrison's "I Can Only Give
You Everything". The final two songs are the best this CD has
to offer,"I Just Don't Know" and "Looking At You" are early
numbers the band played when they FIRST formed.Only down side
is that since Smith is gone and Tyner has passed on as well
means that there can never be a true MC 5 reunion. Great sound.

The MC-5 [Motor City Five] was the real deal. The electricity rips through these recordings, opening you up to a new understanding of "rock music". Of course, the blues influence is also here as in all great rock music. Distortion guitar at it's primal majesty. Real vocals that meant something then, though the message may be a bit dated today. Also, try Iggy and the Stooges for a taste of what real rock music is all about.

"Babes In Arms" is a phenomenol compilation of the MC 5's music. If you are really keen on the MC5, I believe every one of their albums is worth picking up. If you are not an obsessive CD collector and/or want just one good sampling of their music, I would have to pick a dead-on tie between this album and their live CD "Kick Out the Jams." (the title cut from that live album is included in this collection.)In fact...on second thought, just ONE of these albums is not sufficient for a minimal MC5 collection, BOTH albums are essential!

Listening to songs like "Sister Ann" (awesome lyrics about a thoroughly unorthodox religious babe!) and "Sonically Speaking" leave you wishing this great Detroit band never broke up. This Cd makes me want to turn everybody I know on to their underrated library of music.

This is the earth shattering real deal True revolution ROCK!!Powerful,tight,mindblowing.You must get these versions of these songs.It gave me a new perspective on the band when it came out.

Can you live without this CD? Yeah, if you own all their "officially" recorded output, maybe. And even if you do, this is still a great alternative to what the record companies thought was acceptable at the time. The MC5 were, and are, the bridge to '60's high energy politicized rock and punk. They were the Beatles of their age, and every bit as important as the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. Fred "Sonic" Smith is gone. Rob Tyner is gone. But what the MC5 brought in their wake is with us every day of the week.

I first heard the MC5 in 1974, after they had broken up. But they sounded so raw, so vital, I couldn't believe the band wasn't still out there somewhere roaring away. I'm glad Rhino, God bless 'em, have released a greatest hits collection, but this ROIR CD (I used to have the cassette) is as good a collection, rarities speaking. From the delightful version of "Shaking Street" to the murky "Gold", this band travelled far and wide in just a few years. I'm glad Wayne Kramer, Dennis Thompson and Mike Davis are still around.

When it really comes down to it, Babes in Arms is a very good album, but it certainly is not a necessity. A compilation of various outtakes, demos, and rarities released after the untimely termination of the delightfully raucous MC5, Babes in Arms is a fairly comprehensive disc that, especially when compared to the countless sloppy boots featuring tracks from their Detroit brethren the Stooges, proves to be a very pleasant listen. Carefully selecting tracks ranging all the way from the dawn of the band's career in 1986 to the unreleased outtakes from their final recording sessions, Babes in Arms does an impressive job of collecting and organizing the unreleased life of the MC5. Despite this promising achievement however, the majority of the songs on the album are simply not on par with the consistently timeless material released on the classic "Kick Out the Jams," "Back in the USA," and "High Time." Highlight tracks like "Poison," "Tonite," and "American Ruse" do help balance out the negative effects of some of the boom box quality demos, (i.e. "I Just Don't Know,") but even the CDs brightest moments fail to equal the utter brilliance of the Five's regularly circulated material. Even so, this is the MC5, and even on a bad song, the MC5 still sound great. There are plenty of good songs on Babes in Arms as well though and it is by no means a bad album, it simply should not take precedence over the group's "big three" if one is planning on buying an MC5 CD. Babes in Arms is certainly good, and I enjoyed it immensely, but while the MC5 is easily a great band, Babes in Arms just isn't a great album.

This CD is a reissue of an early-1980's cassette-only release, and is packaged with a sticker (attributed to guitarist Wayne Kramer) proclaiming this is the "best" of the MC5. I disagree. There is a lot of top-quality material here, but the full last third of the disc is comprised of songs that are either tough to listen to or that don't warrant repeated listening. The CD opens with a fantastic outtake, a slightly more tasteful version of "Shakin' Street" than on the "Back in the USA" LP, with acoustic guitar accents by Fred Smith. This should have been the primary version and is almost worthe the cost of the CD. The original "uncensored" version of "Kick Out the Jams" is included here, but it is now the standard version on CD release of that album title, and having listened to the "brothers and sisters" version on my original LP for all of my high school years and the decades beyond, I kind of wish the censored version was available on CD, because there's more of a point to it. "Sister Anne" was the "Kick Out the Jams" of the MC5's final studio album, and really packs a punch. After presenting a generally good selection of MC5 material, the CD takes a sharp downward turn with "Gold." This song, it is claimed, was recorded for a movie soundtrack. It's easy to see why it wasn't selected, as the song doesn't amount to much more than sprawling noise. The rest of the CD is just very un-extraordinary material recorded pre-Kick Out the Jams, interesting for a listen or two but not much more. If this is intended to represent the "best" of the MC5, consider that only the title song off "Kick Out the Jams" is included, and that a song like "Teenage Lust" is overlooked. This CD has its merits, but is pulled down by the final songs.

for a band that was outlawed , disbanded due to content censorship and had wayne kramer locked up,,, its difficult to
criticize them: needless to say ,some of their songs are tremendous, not the least kick out the jams,,,, they were expected to fit into a music industry that they were at odds with,,,, especially with the white power and chicago demonstration karma of 1968. still,,, great music,,,, kick out the jams is still my choice instead of this,but the change to atlantic from electra had its downside as well.... glad they are getting the recognition they so much deserve, rob tyner died some time back,,,, a great stage show and is often selected with iggy as the earliest and best of raw punk