Ear-Bleeding Country: The Best of Dinosaur Jr.

Dinosaur Jr.

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 2, 2001)
• Original Release Date: October 2, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B00005Q3AM
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,974 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adequate collection of DINO greats!, October 13, 2001

By	oshfr "oshfr" (New York) - See all my reviews

To review a "Best Of' can be a difficult task since "Best Of" does not mean "Greatest Hits" and therefore can include anything by the artist. Who is to determine the best of an artist? This usually should be left to the fans or the artists personal favorites and not the record company. Rhino/Warners play it safe on this collection and did the usual: compiling mainly the singles, with a few added album tracks. While this is a five star collection, despite the album tracks that should've been on here, I deducted a star due to the inclusion of J. Mascis and The Fog material which are NOT Dinosaur Jr. tracks even though they have a familiarity, because in essence, after Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Folk Implosion) was kicked out of the band (which is why we have the great "The Freed Pig"), Dinosaur Jr. was essentially a solo act with the occasional inclusion of Drummer Murph on later Warner Brothers recordings. The inclusion of the J. Mascis tracks took away form gems that could have been added from the great "You're Living All Over Me" and "Green Mind" recordings.
Otherwise, this is an excelent collection, and is no way going to please all of the true Dinosaur Jr. fans. If you are new to DInosaur Jr., then get this for the later and early singles and if you like it, go get Green Mind and You're Living All Over Me.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not A Bad Place To Start, October 20, 2001

By	"jbksauls" (Corvallis, OR United States) - See all my reviews

Like with most things that Rhino issues, this is a solid collection and you get a lot of music for the cost of purchase (19 tracks). For fans like me that didn't really get into Dino Jr until their MTV-era ("Out There", "Feel The Pain")it's nice to have a good chunk of material from their pre-WB indie days. Also nice is the inclusion of J Masic's solo turn on "Take A Run At The Sun" and a new track from his new band, J Masic and The Fog. All in all, if you own no Dino Jr. at all then this is a good place to start. As with any band, some great songs are missing from this "best of" but, that criticism aside, "Ear Bleeding Country" is a cool collection.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Got a knack for being right!, September 26, 2005

By	Sacco (here there and everywhere) - See all my reviews

From there inception as a post hardcore sonic terrors until the end as grunge survivors, 'Ear Bleeding Country' Dinosaur Jr's best of covers a great deal of territory. Full of great tracks, some classic some merely good, the one thing you should take away from listening to this collection is that J Mascis, boy could he play guitar. A generation of who were brought up on grunge owe that guitar sound to J, one of the few originals of the last 25 years.

What this fails to do however is give a good overview of the band. The early tense savagery of the more punk albums especially isn't really on show on this collection, and is rather under represented. However its still great fun, often thunderous, and almost reveling in a slacker ethic. Though I'm sure every fan would have come up with a different best of 19 songs, this is still as decent a starting place you'll find for the band, after which if you're interested you should get 'You're Living All Over Me' then 'Bug' then 'Greenmind' and 'Whatevers Cool With Me', followed by the rest at random. Of interest long time fans still is the pretty flower of a 'Take A Run At The Sun' which J did for a movie soundtrack, and is probably the best example of his softer sider you'll ever find.

The other high lights, the first seven songs, 'Whatevers Cool With Me', 'Start Choppin', 'Feel The Pain' and 'I'm Insane'. Really just enjoy and then hopefully you'll discover the rest of what the band has to offer.