Find the Way Out: Anthology [Import]

Boo Radleys | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 11, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Sanctuary UK
• ASIN: B00077372O
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,173 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Catweazle

2. Happens to Us All

3. Hip Clown Rag [Demo Version]

4. Kaleidoscope

5. The Finest Kiss

6. Everybird

7. Lazy Day

8. Spaniard

9. Does This Hurt?

10. Sunfly II: Walking with the Kings

See all 20 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Wake Up Boo!: Music for Astronauts

2. Blues for George Michael

3. Find the Answer Within

4. Joel

5. Reaching Out from Here

6. From the Bench at Belvidere

7. Almost Nearly There

8. What's in the Box? (See Watcha Got)

9. Four Saints

10. C'mon Kids

See all 15 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Greatness & Imperfection, August 3, 2005

By 

John L Murphy "Fionnchú" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Find the Way Out: Anthology (Audio CD)

You probably know what the band sounds like already. Support them with your cash; they deserve it. I'm focusing here a bit more on the arguments made for the band's legacy in the collection itself, verbally and musically. A Creation compilation following the wake of a great Swervedriver one, this is handsomely presented and thoughtfully sequenced.

The excellent liner notes perhaps make a stronger case for the Boo Radleys than I, a longtime fan, would justify. Brian Block gives an overview of the band's ascension via the grittier shoegazing/fuzzy guitar cohorts to more eclectic popsters, to briefly chart-topping fab four Scousers, to again grittier mixers of beats and harshness into their polychromatic textures. Extra points to Block for putting the band's scope next to not only XTC but The Loud Family, an overlooked array of genii from Northern California you all must hear. Keith Cameron sensitively charts the band's rise and decline, although, like Block, I think he gives the latter part of the band's output too much credit and diminishes the appeal of their grottier early shambling noise--"Everything's" a far better album than both reviewers in the notes rate, and I prefer it actually as a whole to "Giant Steps," although that album has the band's best songs.

The selections here take six songs from the very first stage of the band, which is my primary reason for purchasing the anthology, as well as some extended mixes, which frankly outwear their welcome, and a few often very short interludes tracked as separate songs. For those who have followed the band and have the albums and many of the e.p.'s, this is best bought for the impressive notes appended by Martin Carr's own reflections on each of the 35 tracks. I prefer the first to the second disc, as I favor the more guitar-oriented, less danceable side of the band. Disc two's first half sounds like McCartney, the latter part John Lennon, as they try to blend Beatleish reverie and angst, respectively, with a more hip--but more diffused and lumpishly cluttered--sound that in my opinion (the notes suggest this) shows the band floundering in the wake of Oasis/Blur's mid-90s Britpop. While more adventurous than Disc One, it hasn't worn as well, although hearing the title track of what I regard their failed last album here does make an eloquent case for the band's command of craft up to their end.

Still, 5 stars for presentation, three at most for Disc Two and four for Disc One, so I'll average it thus.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No "Foster's Van"?, June 1, 2006

By 

M. Midlock (LaGrange, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Find the Way Out: Anthology (Audio CD)

What? One of their greatest swirly songs has not been included? Curses!

Still, a worthwhile compilation from a worthwhile band....