Customer Reviews

Fully Qualified: The Choicest Cuts

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Some would rate The Masters Apprentices as the Aussie Led Zep come Yardbirds. I would rate them as the Australian "Pretty Things" as both bands formed around the Mid 60's and started off as Wild boys playing fierce loud RnB during the Mid to late 60s, and then delivered top quality Hard Progressive Rock at the turn of the 70's. I will let you know that I loved the Pretty Things 1st 3 albums of the 70s (i.e. Freeway Madness/Savage Eye and Silk Torpedo) BUT I did'nt really care too much for their 60s RnB offerings which they so heavily rely on to this day. The same goes with TMA. Their 60s output featured on this CD will immediately remind you of all those 60s British Beat bands (Yardbirds/Pretty Things/Kinks/Stones etc). OK, they do it well, but as is usually the case, you will prefer one style to the other, and mine as I said was the Harder edged style of the 70s. I bought this CD as I only had their 70s CDs, and wanted some reminder in a "best of" offering of their earlier years. One thing the CD could have done though is feature some of their Blues covers they did from their re-union of the late 80's which feature on the compilation "Do what you wanna do" to give you a FULL picture (Fully qualified?). Finally, their is also the Fully QUalified DVD which as you would expect, also gives you the history of T.M.A. with numerous interviews with Band members past and present, and also features clips of Classic Tracks. Great! you say? Well! It would have been, but all the songs were cut to shreds. God! How lovely it would have been to see all those tracks UN-CUT. Here's hoping. Masters Apprentices are best known for the 2 songs "Because I love You" (That should have been a worldwide hit - PERIOD) and "Turn up your Radio", but songs like "Beneath the Sun" and "Love is" are 2 more that spring to mind which were/are sadly overlooked.

Every bit as out-standing as their 'Complete Recordings' (see my review) if not better. Noticed that some of the same tunes do appear on both CD titles - but not that many. Tracks that I simply couldn't get enough of were the rocking "Poor Boy", "Buried And Dead", "Elevator Driver", the awesome the should-have-been a hit "Merry Go Round", the freakbeat anthem (sort to speak) "Think About Tomorrow Today", and the gritty "Turn Up Your Radio". Also liked "Song For A Gypsy" and the two closers - a couple of true psychedelic songs - the beautiful "Thyme To Rhyme" and "Wild, Wild Party". Highly recommended.

I got this because i LOVE 60's punk/garage and The Missing Links(from where a member or 2 r from)are devastating.But I can c why they never became HUgE outside of their native Australia because they have really dumb lyrics(I'm not saying Autralians r dumb or that a person who enjoys "The Move" for instance might not enjoy this),but on American radio next to bands like Free,Mott the Hoople,etc. they wouldn't be able to cut it.The sound is from the Original MASTER tapes so this makes all previous "Best ofs" obsolete.THe improvement over what I heard from before is Staggering.If you're a serious collector of 60's/early 70's rock this is a MUST!