Customer Reviews

Best of the Worst 93-97

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

 

 

Being a recent initiate to the glory of the Oblivians, I picked up the first CD that I found, and this was it. It's almost worth the price alone for the first song, a blues-charged, furious rocker, but the rest is kind of hit or miss. Several B-sides, live tracks, covers, and more straight ahead blues and R&B stuff are included. Nevertheless, it still indicates why this band, in my opinion, beats the Blues Explosion at it's own game in the end. Sure, they never released anything as ambitious and unique as "Orange", but the body of their work, on the whole, is more durable and effective. They seemed to have alot more knowledge and understanding of blues and gospel music, while still subverting it to their own dastardly ends. Not the place to start, but yes, the best tracks here display their signature heartbroken fury, in fuzzed-out explosions of venom.

The Oblivians were one of the best and most overlooked bands of the 90's. It's too bad they didn't wear flannel or try to combine lame metal with non existant rapping skills, but them's the berries, folks. The liner notes mention how the members, on tour with an earlier version of the band, brought only one mix tape with them- one side Rolling Stones, the other Pussy Galore. This perfectly describes what you'll find here. They were doing this in the early 90's! Now think of all the bands like the Yeah Yeahs Yeahs and Deerhunter who are doing essentially the same 10-15 years later and tell me they weren't ahead of their time! I would personally pick up any of their albums first, like the amazing gospel album with Mr. Quintron, but if you find this in the used bin you could do much, much worse.