Customer Reviews

Revolutions In Sound: Warner Bros. Records-The First Fifty Years(10 CD)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No Prince? No surprise. That feud will never be resolved. No Van Morrison? Also not surprising. Still, a good many of the label's megahits are here, and the story unfolds rather nicely across ten CDs. There are no rarities included in this set, which is OK - doing so would sort of diminish the picture it paints, which is that WB grew from an offshoot of the movie studio at the beginning of the 1960s to a rock/pop powerhouse by decade's end. Still, given the fact that the label is under the same corporate umbrella as Rhino, the reissue kings, couldn't they have asked someone there to review the production copies to verify that the correct masters were being used for every track? Case in point: the version of the Bellamy Brothers' "Let Your Love Flow" is not the 1976 original as it should be, it is a remake from 2005 featuring '90s country stars Hal Ketchum and Lisa Brokop. An inexcusable, bush-league error that sullies this set by corrupting the timeline of its history. This never would have happened if Mo Ostin were still in charge.

This 10-CD, 199-song box covers 50 years(1958-2008) of Warner Bros Records(including the Reprise & Sire labels) as well as some labels which were once manufactured and distributed by Warners(Capricorn,Geffen,Chrysalis), and luckily the present-day owners or distributors of those labels were willing to license recordings for this box.

Almost anybody who was anybody who recorded for these labels is included, however, the absence of Prince,Van Morrison, The Kinks, Black Sabbath, Kraftwerk & Enya fairly glares at you. Presumbably those artists refused permission.

The box does rush quickly through the label's first 8 years(on one CD!), but you get a remarkable selection of hits,misses & album tracks covering novelty songs, comedy, MOR, top 40, rock,soul,dance & alternative music and an attractive 64-page booklet.

Some have complained about the packaging. The discs fit(very snugly) onto hubs made of a gel material, and it is difficult to get the discs onto or off of these hubs. Disc 5 & disc 10 fit into the package in a way that they sit overlapping onto the other discs, so you will likely not get discs 5 & 10 in pristine condition. However, they played fine.

Still, I recommend the set.

Warner Brothers was a pioneering MoR record label in the 60s and 70s with these strengths represented in the present collection in Sinatra (Frank and Nancy) and the Rat Pack (Dino and Sammy), comedy (Bob Newhart, Richard Pryor) and pop (Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple,Neil Young, Leo Sayer, Paul Simon etc.,) but with the occasional forays into soul (Loma, WB, Ze, Capricorn, - Percy Sledge, Dobie Gray, Candi Staton,Lorraine Ellison!!) and jazz (Randy Crawford, Joe Sample, Bob James etc.,) woefully underrepresented. The full history of WB and its ground breaking PR activities are wonderfully documented in Stan Cornyn's book "Exploding".

WB could and would never, ever be accused of confusing product with altruism - unlike the Ertegun's at sister label, Atlantic or Jim Stewart at Stax. Nonetheless, this is a magnificently produced time capsule - the sonics are wonderful - if you've only heard Tiny Tim and Napoleon XIV (They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! Ho Ho, hee Hee etc.,) on mono 45s, you are in for a treat - or audio abuse - take your pick - betcha did'nt know "Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips" actually had any bass?

This is an indispensable collection for anyone interested in the history of pop music and maybe - now that WB has recognized value in its 50th Anniversary - we'll see more expertly remastered golden oldies - remember Leroy Van Dyke's "It's All over Now Baby Blue"?

Warner Bros. has had an illustrious yet eclectic 50 years in music featuring artists ranging from Madonna to Steve Martin to Randy Newman to Kid Creole and the Coconuts. This 199-song collection, which is beautifully packaged, does a decent job of covering WB's unique role in music history. But the omissions are glaring.

Where is Prince?? Peter Gabriel? Both are featured prominently in the accompanying booklet, but there is no "Kiss", no "Raspberry Beret", no "Sledgehammer", no "Big Time". Other glaring omissions include Ashord & Simpson (who gave WB some of the best R&B songs of the '70s, recently compiled in an excellent anthology), no Petula Clark, whose '60s hits were distributed in North America via WB, no Laurie Anderson, no solo Chaka Khan, no Joni Mitchell!

Usually I'm not such a nit-picker, but these omissions were big. I am not sure why they were not included. I would imagine WB owns the rights to these songs. It would certainly be embarrassing if the compilers overlooked these artists and their songs...

I still recommend this compilation because what you get is high quality, but the omissions are just too obvious.

...the glaring mistake previous reviewer pointed out (thank you!) The sound level is frustratingly uneven, and considering the label has alway paid attention to sound quality from the very beginning, this is quite a let down. Again, comparison to sister company Rhino is inevitable, and in addition to the sound issue, the nonexistence of information about single edits, catalog numbers & chart positions also reflects unfavorably on this set. I gave it 3-star not because what's here is bad at all, but because it could have been so much better.

I'm still going through this 10-CD box set, but so far it's a fascinating retrospective with an eclectic mix of rock, pop, soul, rap, comedy, etc. Warner Brothers is no stranger to reasonably-priced samplers from their catalog. This collection reminds me a little of the 2-record "loss leader" collections they offered for about $2.00 back in the late 60's/early 70's.

Warner Brothers Records started out as a kind of "vanity project" for actors under contract at the studio: Tab Hunter, Jack Webb, Connie Stevens, and Ed "Kookie" Byrnes were all early artists signed to the label. It wasn't till they signed two of their biggest early stars, the Everly Brothers and Bob Newhart, that the label really took flight. Later, they added affiliated labels like Reprise and Sire. Here's just a sampling of the many artists you'll find in this set, which is arranged more-or-less chronologically:

The Everly Brothers, Bob Newhart, Peter Paul and Mary, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, The Beach Boys, Jethro Tull, T. Rex, Aice Cooper, Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young, Allman Brothers Band, Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Rod Stewart, Steve Martin, Ramones, ZZ Top, The B-52's, Talking Heads, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Pretenders, Elton John, Van Halen, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, George Harrison, The Replacements, Jane's Addiction, Elvis Costello, Madonna, Ice-T, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eric Clapton, Green Day, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Cher, Steely Dan, The Flaming Lips, Regina Spektor, The White Stripes, Metallica

There are some glaring omissions: Petula Clark, The Kinks, Van Morrison, Bill Cosby, Joni Mitchell, Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel, and Prince, for example, don't make a musical appearance (probably due to licensing or permission issues), and I would have taken any of them over, say, Dino Desi and Billy. This failure to include some rather popular and influential artists may have cost this set one star in my rating, but it's still a good and diverse playlist of Warner Brothers' musical history and evolution. No artist is represented by more than one track here, except Fleetwood Mac and the Doobie Brothers, but you could argue they were essentially different bands between "Oh Well" and "Go Your Own Way", or pre- and post-Michael McDonald, respectively. There's also a nice big illustrated booklet included, and a companion hardback book sold separately (which I've also ordered), or you can opt for a deluxe edition book complete with a 320-track mp3 drive. Amazon's currently selling price of this set is a bargain when you consider the sheer volume of music. Obviously, you won't like everything on it, but it's a fun trip through music history.

This is a 10 CD box set and it includes a great mix of the varied artists that recorded for the Warner Brothers label. A great mixture of different talent. If you are a collector of past music, this would be a great addition of a great label from the late 50's til the 21st Century. The price is a bit salty. I would expect some of the songs on this collection are making their first presence on a CD. A great booklet is included that gives one a historical prespective of this label. Even though it doesn't have the long history like RCA, Decca and Columbia it still was a great music influence in the last 40 years of the 20th Century giving a lot of artists the opportunity to present their art to the public.