Customer Reviews

Black Gold: The Best of Soul Asylum

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Im not familiar with much old Soul Asylum, so I cant say whats missing other than "Easy Street". But I do know that what is on here is great stuff. All the bigger 90's hits you would expect, plus good songs I didn't know and a few live/unreleased tracks. It's a great thing to have for the person who needs only one Soul Asylum disc, especially at 19 tracks and 70+ minutes. Don't be in Misery, get this.

This CD is a good starting place to check out the band. It has some of the great older songs like "Closer to the Stars", "We 3" and "Cartoon", hits like "Misery" and "Runaway Train", and some rarities on it. I was never able to track down "Lonely For You" on the import single, so I'm very happy to own it now on this. It's a beautiful song. I would have liked to have seen "Promises Broken" included instead of "Summer Of Drugs", mainly because "Summer Of Drugs" is a cover. It's still a very good collection of Soul Asylum material and next to a live show, gives a good feel for what they are about.

The sad truth is that Soul Asylum is not the band on this album. They may have become the band on this album but for almost 15 years they were a much better and more complete band. Success came after ...the horse they rode in on and Hang Time, but for me their peak was much earlier with Made To Be Broken and While You Were Out, both of which albums were left out.

Never forget that Soul Aslyum started in 1979 as Loud Fast Rules and then changed their name to Soul Aslyum because they didnt want to be seen as a HC band.

And where are the Time's Incinerator songs? How many people even know about this album? Its too bad that Sould Asylum will be thought of as a 90s bad because they are so much more than that.

While not being a complete history, Black Gold does help the casual fan by including all of the hits and help the more interested person sift though their sub-par later material while including a couple of hard to finds. This is by no means a best of, however, because there is a lot of great early material missing. Almost nothing from Clam Dips and two tracks from Hangtime are included making this a good starting point but by no means an ending point for the more interested fan.

After listening to this album, its safe to say that its a classic. As I've been a big Soul Asylum fan for a while, I was rather disappointed to hear that they would be releasing a retrospective cd . . . especially after I heard that they would not be including any of their new material on the cd. Despite that fact, in listening to this cd, I wonder what else they could have included to make it better. Aside from a few missing tracks (Never Really Been?!?!?!) its jam packed with 74+mins of the best music in the world.

Despite the fact that the album was missing a few essential songs, and that as a big fan I had previously owned all the songs, i was impressed with the remixes on the album. I find it fun to listen to the new album and try to figure out all the differences in the songs. So even if you have all the Soul Asylum albums, and have all the live and unreleased songs on this cd, its well worth buying. I was especially pleased with Lonely For You, before I had the copy from the Laughing import and was rather disappointed as it was no match for the live versions. But the compilations version is really good. If you haven't heard this song, that alone is reason enough to buy it.

As for new fans to the band, this album is definately a great way to test drive the band. Buy it, and within a week you'll be hooked and back at the record store looking for every other Soul Asylum cd you can find.

Siul asylum was one of my favorite bands. i loved the image of the band and i liked the songs they were interesting and smart some times. i owned their 1992 album ''grave dancers union'' and the followup 1995's ''let your dim light shine''
i use to listen to them all the time, so much i would wear out my tape player.
the songs are good if you are a big fan, they showcase like what most greatest cds do, early stuff with newer songs, and some B sides and rare live songs too.
if your new to the band it would be good to catch up with this cd since it gives you songs from 1988 and the 1990 album as well.
''cartoon'' was a song i had not heard before i got this CD. and i liked it a lot, i found it to be what it is grunge, pop music which is what soul asylum mostly is or tried to be.
i felt that the lead singer for the band Dave, tried to be like kurt cobain a lot, in the way he acted and dressed and the way he would play on stage too. but besides trying to be like kurt cobain which most bands that time and still do act like their nirvana. even though soul asylum came out before nirvana hit it huge.
the cd is Good, i learned a lot about a band that i loved to listen to as a teenager.

I heard Soul Asylum live at the RibFest in Fargo, ND and their stage show was very good (except for the corny jokes). I bought two of their CDs shortly after and am still wowed.

This is a decent collection of song from Soul Asylum From 1993 (grave dancer's union) on. They could have drawn more heavy on the Grave Dancer's album which was by far their best seller, but chose to go with a mix from their last next two albums Let your dim Light shine and Candy from a stranger instead, and unfortunate. Although the songs are good, Many fans feel ripped off because their favorite are off of grave dancer are not included. Also, Although A&M re-released some of the Twintone/restless back catalog, about 4 or 5 albums total before grave dancer, they did not include any of that material. This year though they did release their best of Soul Asylum, the twintone years ,which has the earlier recordings from Soul Asylum previous released first by twintone and next in 1991 by Restless, then a few by A&M. But, despite this album missing pieces, a good one for the collection, and not that expensive on Amazon.

Nice little comp for a band that is largely under-rated. Well, except for 1992-93 when they were everyone's darlings. But how quickly even darlings can be forgotten. Truth is, their early stuff isn't that great (okay, it's great!), and their later stuff isn't bad at all (seriously). Frankly, I really dig LET YOUR DIM LIGHT SHINE and CANDY FROM STRANGERS is flat-out awesome. Love the acoustic and live bonus tracks on this baby. Hell, if you don't own anything by The Asylum then this is worth it for RUNAWAY TRAIN alone, possibly the best pop song of the 90's.

This is a great cd for any soul asylum fan, or if you are only familiar with thier biggerst hit "Runaway Train" this collection would be a great way to introduce you to more of thier music. The unreleased tracks are awesome, and are songs the band has played live for sometime now, it is great to finally have these on a CD.

As great as the collection is,it is lacking in that it doesn't include anything from 'And The Horse They Rode In On', Which is one of my personal favorite Soul Asylum Albums and is now out of print.