Customer Reviews

The Best of the Mediæval Bæbes

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After hearing a song of the Mediaeval Baebes on radio I wanted to hear more. I was not disappointed.

Most of songs on the 'Best Of' cd are lovely, enchanting and at times haunting. They transport you back in time to some Medieval village when life was simple, more elemental. The harmony of the Baebes voices is tastefully arranged and executed. Instruments of the period were used and sparsely at that.

On the whole, interesting listening but not something I play very often.

My only gripe is that the cd was produced with some miscalculation resulting in songs starting and ending mid-track! (From track 6 onward.) This means you have to listen to the tracks in order, from start to finish. If you skip to a later song, you arrive mid-song. This is very annoying and detracts from the enjoyment of the cd. What a pity. (I'd listen to the tracks at a music shop before buying to make sure all is in order.)

Let the music be medieval, not the cd technology.

The tracks on this album are from just two Mediaeval Baebes albums: "Salva Nos" and "Worldes Blysse". As of 1999, these were the only two albums they had released, and the only two they released on Virgin. But it's hard to justify a "Best Of" album based on two releases. The album has 20 of the 32 tracks issued on the two albums. No wonder the album isn't mentioned on the Mediaeval Baebes web site. However, it would still be an okay deal if the album really did have the best cuts from their first two albums, but it's missing "An Adult Lullaby", "Verbum Caro", and "This Ay Nicht" from "Salva Nos" and "All Turns To Yesterday" from "Worldes Blysse". So I can't say that this is really the best of even these two albums. Save your money and get "Worldes Blysse"; if you like it and want to get more classical, then get "Salva Nos" or move forward to "The Rose" or "Mirabilis"

The album is a compilation of the other discs that the Mediaeval Baebes put out, but it is still a great thrill to listen to them. The blend of music and sound updating from the Gregorian and medieval sounds to a bit more current is always a nice sound.
The service for the disc was great as it came in quite quickly and in excellent condition. I recommend this company for its service.

The music in this CD is just beautiful. I wonder if it is my Celtic culture calling. A voice from the past reaching out to be pulled into the present.

this is a really fun collection, but if you like traditional chant or polyphony (which is what i was looking for, when i stumbled onto this) medieval babes is the opposite of that. 'edgy' is the word they like to use in the biz for this kind of thing. as they say, the spice girls of the middle ages. but i would say they're musically a lot better than that. of course many of the songs are real songs from the middle ages, so they're starting with better material.

mea maxima culpa. i must admit i like them, but when i heard the last cut 'how death comes' i thought to myself, 'these guys have GOT to be witches.' i looked em up and sure enough, they all claim to be white witches or some such nonsense, and their self proclaimed mission is to 'seduce', like frankenfurter in 'rocky horror picture show,' the aim is to spread their sensuality and decadence to all society. so if you're a stronger christian than me, consider carefully.

if you don't LOOK at them on youtube or some such, but just listen, maybe it's okay. (you can't help but think salaciously, gawking at them wiggling around in their purposely diaphanous outfits) the lyrics, especially the latin, as far as i know, come from the middle ages, so the words are probably all right. you don't need to see them; their music and singing is plenty good enough to stand on its own without a floor show.

and be warned. like some of the guys said earlier, the chapter stops are all in the wrong places, in the middle of the songs! whoever engineered this was a complete idiot.

What a delight to hear such a great variety of medieval music done so very well; it will now become a tradition to listen to every Christmas season.

I have changed my mind from an earlier review of Mistletoe and Wine - this is a better compilation, in my opinion because it includes Pearl and Sweet Sonne. Does not include Adam Lay Ibounden,or Undentride though, and I could do without the last track - "How Death Comes". For ladies with beautiful angelic voices and breathtaking harmonies, THAT track sounds like something from a Roger Corman Horror flick. UGH. Im glad they used the original Salva Nos on this instead of the 'pimped' up one on Mistletoe and Wine. Really, this has most of my faves - Kinderly, Pearl, Love me Broughte, etc. Good intro to this type of music and a perfect gift for someone you know who is into RenFaires, LARPing, re-enactments. I LOVE being able to hear little known instruments like citerns, hurdygurdies, etc.

After the group "Miranda Sex Garden" had left Mute, finding themselves deprived of a record label and without too many favourable prospects for future activity, singer and composer Katharine Blake decided to found in 1996, along with medieval instrumentalist Dorothy Carter, a kind of sideline project with the prosaic name of "The Mediaeval Baebes". This was a female assemblage of singers (most of them friends and acquaintances of Blake) devoted to bring up to date the texts and rhythms of the medieval era in an uninhibited and light-hearted way.

Apparently, the Baebes became a phenomenon in the U.K due to their attitude, freshness and sex appeal and it didn't take them a lot of work to get signed by a major label, in this case, Virgin records.

I still find it ironic (and none the less curious) that even a band like this, dedicated to antique/medieval music, could've been much more accepted and popular than Miranda Sex Garden. In the subsequent years following 1996, the Baebes released two best-selling albums: "Salva Nos" (1997) and "Worlds Blysse" (1998), both recordings reached very high positions on the British classical charts and, from then on, almost everything's been hunky dory for them. What it had started as an extravagant excuse for a group of girls to have a singsong together and dress like princesses did eventually take roots and blossomed into the main and most successful musical project ever conceived by Katharine Blake.

This 1999 Virgin compilation supposedly gathers the "cream" of their two first albums, featuring little jewels like the highly acclaimed "Kinderly", the naughty "Ah Si Mon Moine" and other magnificent tracks like "Ecci Mundi Gaudium", the instrumental "La Volta", and "Miri It Is" (my favourite one). The thing with this recording is that it was released too soon, maybe as a desire by the record company to make the most out of the Baebes's success so far. As a result, it only spans a short period in their career and it is not representative at all about everything they have done to this day. It is obviously incomplete but, nevertheless, it can be used as a fairly good introduction to the early years of the group. An enclosure of the lyrics and their corresponding translation into modern English for the non-initiated would have been appreciated, though.


And now, the criticism:

The problem I have with The Mediaeval Baebes is that I find their music rather boring and repetitive after a while of listening to it (at least the material featured on this compilation). I also perceive them as a far less original project, especially when compared to Blake's former band (MSG). There are many artists singing mediaeval tunes out there, but, how many groups can you find with a sound remotely similar to that offered by MSG?

I have listened intently to the music of both bands and I consider MSG music to be bolder and more sophisticated and original than the Baebes'. I know it's useless to compare the two of them because, after all, they are quite different, but I cannot help to conclude that The Mediaeval Baebes' music is much more specific, conventional and focused, much more anchored to a determined period of time, and also somewhat gentler, both musically and lyrically. On the other hand, MSG devised timeless soundscapes that skilfully challenged a lot of conventions and were extremely difficult to label while at the same time creating a unique style that was all of their own. As they were also a bit less image-conscious and possessed a less restricted approach than the Baebes, they were able to concentrate more on the compositions (which is what really matters) and delivering unprecedented and complex tracks. Perhaps they were not so commercial and appealing, but for me they've been Katharine Blake's best band so far (or at least the most special one).

Another reason why I don't really get a kick out of the Baebes is that I've never had a penchant for medieval music before (though I really had one for female voices) and their albums have never quite clicked for me. In my opinion, medieval times are (or were), in general terms, extremely moral and oppressing, and I've never felt myself inclined or intimately connected towards them. Consequently, medieval songs are not my cup of my tea or the kind of music I usually enjoy.

I am sure that the Baebes have contributed positively with their medieval revivalism to spread this type of music to a wider range of public who didn't care about it before for considering it pretty dull and elitist. I'm glad for those who are able to appreciate it, but I'm afraid that this time I'm not one of them.

I think The Mediaeval Baebes are a good group, at times lovely, and I sympathise with them but they haven't made me forget MSG's legacy. I would be a big liar if I said that I don't want to see Katharine Blake and the others reforming MSG again and delighting all their fans (surely we are not so few) one more time. It's quite depressing to see that they've never been backed up by a greater success that allowed them to follow their own path, as the Baebes have. Why some groups are so fortunate and others so luckless...?

Well, in any case, it is good to see a delightful artist like Katharine Blake earning her living through music and obtaining (at last) the well-deserved success that was constantly denied her in the past. I personally wish her and the people around her good luck in the future with their projects and their ideas; you are all an amazing bunch worth following.


Finally, I'd like to apologise for having used this review to vent my nostalgia for another group, but I couldn't help it, they were great and I miss them a lot.

Do not refrain from giving me a negative vote if my opinion is divergent from yours, please. I like to see how different I am from other people.