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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Generous serving of the Wallflowers, June 20, 2009
The Wallflowers was one of the bands whose sound shaped, or certainly represented, the mid-1990s like few other bands, with their sophomore album "Bringing Down the Horse" being a multi-million seller. The band died a quiet death in 2005 with the "Rebel, Sweetheart" album that went nowhere. Since then winger-songwriter Jacob Dylan went on to a solo career, and now 4 years after the band's last album come a 'greatest hits' collection.
"Collected: 1996-2005" (16 tracks; 70 min.) appropriately rewrites history and completely ignores the band's 1992 debut album, given that it was dismissed/ignored by the public at large (and the critics as well). Five of the first 6 tracks from "Bringing Down The Horse" start off this collection, including "One Headlight" (the song you couldn't possibly escape in 96-97), "6th Avenue Heartache" and "Three Marlenas". The 2000 album "Breach" gets 4 tracks, including the minor hit "Letters from the Wasteland". The 2002 album "Red Letter Days" gets 3 tracks, and the last album "Rebel, Sweetheart" gets 2 tracks. This compilation is rounded out with an unreleased song "Eat You Sleeping" as well as the demo-track of "God Says Nothing Back" from the last album.
Overall, at 70 min. this is a very generous serving and overview of the Wallflowers, and aimed strictly at the casual fan. The more ardent fan (such as myself) will probably have these 4 studio albums already. If there is one thing I could change to this collection, it would be to add their cover of David Bowie's "Heroes" (from the 1998 n"Godzilla" soundtrack) as that was actually a radio hit. Back in the day, I really like this band and I saw them in concert a number of times. It's always been a mystery while they couldn't repeat the success of "Bringing Down the Horse" and my best guess is that they simply took too long (4 years) to come up with a new album, by which time the public either had forgotten about them, and/or had moved on to other things.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Horse They Rode in On, July 3, 2009
Jakob Dylan has the double-edged sword that has hung over his band. Had he not been Bob Dylan's son, chances are that "One Headlight" might not have gotten heard. On the other hand, his work will always be underrated by virtue of his parental lineage. This collection argues for the undervalued part, as the songs are universally solid. Starting with the Bringing Down the Horse hits, The Wallflowers made awesome folk-rock that hat both the headlight hit, but an album filled with great tracks. "Three Marlena's" and "Six Avenue Heartache" both begged the fatherly comparisons, but now, over a decade later, they hold their own.
The next album was a more star-studded affair. Breach was produced by fellow folk-rocker Michael Penn, had a guest shot from Elvis Costello, and found Jakob breaching the topic of life in a famous shadow. On his third album, the band finally found their footing. "Letters From The Wasteland," "Sleepwalker" and "Hand Me Down" are all worthy picks. In fact, this collection's first 9 of 16 songs are from these two albums.
It leaves the 4th and 5th getting the short straw (and ignores the debut completely). But the the remaining songs from Rebel, Sweetheart and Red Letter Days are all good, with a personal favorite of mine being "The Beautiful Side of Somewhere." They had become less gritty and more mainstream, meriting comparisons to Tom Petty and even more so with Counting Crows. For fans that only got to hear "One Headlight" on the classic rock stations repeat lists, this is a good primer.
MIA: their great cover of Bowie's Heroes and a track or two from Jakob's Seeing Things.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A decade of high quality songs, June 16, 2009
This is a very good collection for the casual Wallflowers fan (like me) who has seen the band once or twice in concert, and owns only a couple of their CDs. It's a chronological overview of their work from "One Headlight" ('96) to "God Says Nothing Back" ('05). Listening to this collection, I was impressed by how the quality level of the material rarely drops. Those first couple of hits (also incl. "6th Avenue Heartache") were heard everywhere during the mid-90s, following which the band's profile went down somewhat but the enjoyability of their music did not. Jakob Dylan's singing and songwriting justifiably got much of the focus, but this collection also reveals some other highlights in these recordings, particularly the strong drum work by Mario Calire, and Rami Jaffee's adept keyboard playing.
Here are two other notes about this album. First, I'm hoping other listeners don't experience the mixed sound quality I heard across these songs. To me, many songs sounded marvelous, such as the shimmering "Invisible City," but others sounded very harsh and tinny ("Letters From the Wasteland" and [sadly] "One Headlight"). Second, it's worth noting that one of the "big box" retailers is selling this with a bonus DVD including nine music videos for no extra charge. Just thought you oughta know.
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