The Definitive Pop Collection [Original recording remastered]

Al Stewart | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 7, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Rhino
• ASIN: B000GH3QAS
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,848 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #34 in Music > World Music > Europe > British Isles > Scotland

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Bedsitter Images

2. Clifton In The Rain

3. In Brooklyn

4. Love Chronicles

5. You Should Have Listened To Al

6. A Small Fruit Song

7. Electric Los Angeles Sunset

8. Zero She Flies

9. You Don't Even Know Me

10. The News From Spain

See all 14 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Year Of The Cat

2. On The Border

3. Lord Grenville

4. If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It

5. Time Passages

6. Song On The Radio

7. A Man For All Seasons

8. Merlin's Time

9. Running Man

10. Midnight Rocks

See all 16 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Track listing DISC 1: 1. Bedsitter Images 2. Samuel, Oh How You've Changed! 3. Electric Los Angeles Sunset 4. Clifton in the Rain 5. Small Fruit Song, A 6. You Don't Even Know Me 7. Soho (Needless to Say) 8. Roads to Moscow 9. Nostradamus 10. Carol 11. Apple Cider Re-Constitution 12. Dark & Rolling Sea, The 13. On the Border 14. Lord Grenville 15. Flying Sorcery 16. Year of the Cat 17. Waiting For Margaux DISC 2: 1. Almost Lucy 2. Time Passages 3. End of the Day 4. Running Man 5. Merlin's Time 6. Song on the Radio 7. Where Are They Now? 8. Red Toupee 9. Last Days of the Century 10. Fields of France 11. Trains 12. Night Train to Munich 13. League of Notions, A 14. House of Clocks 15. Laughing Into 1939 Details Producer: Dani Barnard (Compilation) Distributor: WEA (Distributor) Recording type: Studio Recording mode: Stereo SPAR Code: n/a Album notes Recording information: 1967 - 2000.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beware of Different Version Available with Exact Same Title, June 3, 2009

By 

Mr Musical Snob "Music fanatic" (Coventry, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Definitive Pop Collection (Audio CD)

The CD as listed on Amazon.com gets a 4-5 star rating, but beware there is another edition of this compilation that is also 2 discs, but has 16 songs per disc, not 14 on the first and 16 on the second. This sounds like a bonus (2 extra cuts, right?), but missing is the lengthy, notorious "Love Chronicles", as well as ten, yes, ten other songs from earlier in his career. So, beware of the other "Definitive Pop Collection": exact same name , different contents. While, the other version is still decent, it is not nearly as good.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reluctantly, October 13, 2007

By 

John H. Sosbee (oakland, ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Definitive Pop Collection (Audio CD)

These packages never do justice to the artist. Ultimately you have to get his albums and listen to all the tracks. His masterpeices such as "Carol," "Roads to Moscow," "Valentina Way" (which I saw Al perform live with a full band including Peter White before the Time Passages album was released, and it was incredible), "Sand in your Shoes," "What's Going on," "The Dark and the Rolling Sea," and of course "Modern Times," and on and on - they need to be discovered if the record companies choose not to bundle them in these packages. And these are all accessable tunes, not unlistenable folk prose.
Al surrounded himself with the best musicians, notably Tim Renwick, who is/was one of the best sessionists and also toured with Pink Floyd. For you electric and acoustic guitar enthusiasts, load up MODERN TIMES and crank up the volume and enjoy the guitar virtuosity on just about every track - including incredible solos on the bookending tracks "CAROL" and the title track at the end. If the Rhino edition of Modern Times is still available, read Al's funny story about mixing the title track, AFTER you listen to it.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A more complete Greatest Hits, November 7, 2006

By 

William M. Feagin "music dealer/geek" (Upstate New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Definitive Pop Collection (Audio CD)

I bought Rhino's single-CD Greatest Hits last year, mainly out of curiosity--I hadn't heard any of Al's pre-Year of the Cat material before, and as nearly half the tracks were drawn from his first six studio albums, I was naturally curious to hear what they'd sound like. I was pleasantly surprised--those early tracks, especially from Love Chronicles (1969), Zero She Flies (1970), Orange (1972) and Modern Times (1974), had a good deal more edge than the slicker YOTC and Time Passages tracks that were included, and really whetted my appetite for Al's music, which I had rediscovered after hearing A Beach Full of Shells, his 2005 release for the Philly-based Appleseed label (and one I highly recommend).

That said, The Definitive Pop Collection goes into a bit more detail than Greatest Hits, notably reaching beyond Last Days of the Century, Al's 1988 release for Enigma (which also features a young Tori Amos singing backup on some of the tracks), to Between the Wars, one of his releases for the now-defunct Mesa/Bluemoon label, one of three labels to go bankrupt on him (the others being Enigma, which filed Chapter 11 in 1990, and Janus, which went belly-up in 1977 and led to his being signed by Arista). Significantly, it includes all of the tracks on Greatest Hits, plus a few more album cuts from his early releases. For those seeking out a wider selection of Al Stewart's songbook, this should be more satisfying even than Greatest Hits (it includes the title cut from Love Chronicles, notorious for its use of the F-word).