Customer Reviews

Work: 1989-2002

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It really shouldn't be all that hard to compile the best of Orbital on one CD. The band recorded a number of transcendent, brilliant songs; at their best, they wrote divine melodies, sometimes euphoric, sometimes a bit moody, but always clean and beautiful. They also wrote a lot of filler around these moments of greatness; all of their albums are wildly inconsistent, at best, so it's pretty easy to discern and single out the good tracks. Here, I'll give you a tracklisting that I came up with just now off the top of my head: "Chime," "Belfast," "Lush 3-1," the live version of "Halcyon + On + On," "Forever," "The Girl With The Sun In Her Head," "Dwr Budr," "Otono," "Transient," and "One Perfect Sunrise." There, that's about eighty minutes of prime Orbital. I'm not saying this is the only possible tracklisting or anything, but it does cover the best parts of their career.

You'll notice that this CD does cover four of my picks. However, two of them are presented only as drastically shortened single edits. This is especially bad in the case of "Halcyon + On + On," which gets reduced from ten minutes to four here; the full version of this track takes two minutes just to get started, and the single edit lacks its entrancingly carefree feel. Nor does the abridged version compare to the explosive, insane joy of the live rendition, which adds samples not found in the original. So, unfortunately, Orbital's signature tune gets short shrift on this CD.

It gets worse. The band's over-ambitious 1993 album Snivilisation is represented only by the single edit of "Are We Here?" when the dramatic, starry-eyed lilt of "Forever" (all eight minutes) is the blindingly obvious choice. Similarly, In Sides is reduced to a short version of "The Box," even though "The Girl With The Sun In Her Head" (or at least the slow introduction to that track) is probably the most beautiful piece of music ever written by the band. One can understand why these tracks didn't make the compilation: these two albums are full of very long, slow, cinematic pieces, which aren't well-suited to single edits, dancefloor fodder, or radio play, and thus wouldn't make for a very popular greatest-hits package. Yet that sort of music was precisely what Orbital was best at, and it's impossible to come up with a good compilation that doesn't showcase it.

The long songs are cut down to allow more tracks to be included on the CD, or, more accurately, to make room for some latter-day tracks from The Altogether, about which the less said the better. Consequently, the best stuff is nearly unrecognizable ("Satan" was a popular track from the band's first album, but this CD only includes the rock version taken from the Spawn soundtrack), and the CD is weighed down by weaker tracks. To make up for this, the CD inexplicably includes the full, eleven-minute version of "Impact USA" (a reworking of "Impact" that is available on the Diversions EP). This track was a low point of its original album; it's got a little bit of melody and a whole lot of brass instruments blowing off-key single notes, obnoxiously goofy samples ("It's...it's...it's like...a cry! A cry...for...survival! For their survival...and for our survival!"), and pounding drum monotony. This more dissonant version is even more pointless. Why not shorten this track, if it was necessary to include it in the first place, and stretch out a better track to its full version?

It's not all bad. "Belfast" and "Lush 3-1" are still here in their unedited glory; the latter of these two still has all of its surging power, and is surely among the greatest pop songs ever written. Aside from that, however, this compilation does Orbital a disservice. And it doesn't even cover their whole career, because it was released before the band's last album. It's too bad, because if ever there was a band that needed a good solid best-of CD, it's Orbital. This CD isn't it, though.

Unfortunately this CD does not do Orbital justice.

Understandably, being a 'best of', they had to include a few recent offerings which take up space better reserved for some older tracks that were not included. What classic tracks they have put on it have (as the Amazon review stated) been butchered and remixed to a much lesser end result. For example, the melodic buildup to 'Halcyon' has been cut, 'Impact' has been sacreligiously tinkered with and the included version of 'Satan' sounds bloody aweful. I'd liked to have seen a few more offerings from their 'Snivilisation' and even the rare version of 'Belfast' (with Therapy).
Maybe wanting to appeal to established Orbital fans, they decided to offer previously unreleased versions of these tracks, but it didn't work and certainly won't present Orbital's potential to new listeners.
In short, newcomers to Orbital should try full albums like 'Orbital 2', 'Snivilisation' and then 'In Sides' and 'Middle of Nowhere'...you won't be disappointed.

I love Orbital. From the primitive bleeps and thuds of 'Chime' to the complex vocals and breakbeats of 'Funny Break', I have never found any of their six albums to be less than good. With the mediocre sales and reviews for "The Altogether", I suppose a greatest hits album was inevitable. And Orbital certainly deserves such a vehicle, because they have been influential in techno from 1989 to the present. All that being said: don't buy it! The only redeeming feature of this disc is just that - most of their good songs together on one disc. Unfortunately, nearly all of the versions offered are not as good as the originals. The first six songs are merely shortened singles. 'Impact' is good, but was also available on their "Diversions" remix album along with some better remixes! Three more chopped up songs follow, and that brings us to the only new song, 'Frenetic'. The beat is ok, but the vocals and pacing give it the character of cheesy eighties synth-pop. The last three songs are untouched, but fail to redeem the album. If ffrr truly wanted to do Orbital's "Work" justice, a double cd might have been the way to go. One last thing: all of Orbital's six albums are still in print. Just get the brown album and go from there. Again, even if you are a completist, this is not worth your money!

As is stated in other reviews... Orbital is brilliant, but unless you are a completist (as I am) there really isn't much of a reason to pick this up. I wanted this for the single version of "Halcyon," which I did not already own. Unfortunately the mix on here can't even compare to the epic full-length "Halcyon + On + On," which appears on the Orbital 2 album. The one new track, "Frenetic," appears on their "Rest" and "Play" EPs, issued about the same time as this retrospective. The Kirk Hammett collaboration of "Satan" is dreadful. Most of the other tracks here are edited versions of songs taken from their catalogue. I won't even bother to get nitpicky about which omitted songs should have been included on this CD, and vice versa. In general I would give Orbital 5 stars, but I would recommend picking up their other albums instead.

I love Obital and most of their albums deserve 5 stars or close to it. This one rates about a 3 3/4. Let me clarify. There is a load of great stuff here, but you really only need it if you are a collector or are new to Orbital. This would be an awsome intro to the group as it has most of thier hit tunes. However, some of the songs are not the great versions fans have heard on the original albums. Since I have all their stuff anyway, I think I'll skip this release. But it is great music that only Obital can make.

Newbies and collectors buy it!

this is a good start for new listeners but misses alot of good songs like omen, midnight, beached, the saint and doctor who? they should have a longer version of chime and have halcyon on and on. hopefully they will come out with a new collection better than the halcyon best of compilation. if they do i hope they also include what i mentioned and include one perfect sunrise and you lot.

It's OK. That's about as good of a review as I can give this one. But then, Orbital isn't an easy band to make a "hits" CD of.

A great blend of Orbital songs from 1989 through 2002. Play at high volume and enjoy!

I agree with all the reviewers bellow I found this CD to be an excellent introduction of Orbital's work. In 90's I was really very keen on this kind of electronic music made by Orbital, however I saw the film called Human Traffic where a track "Belfast" is situated just right at the end of the furious trip of the "heroes" in the film...immediatelly I heard the song I tried to look it up at the Internet what the hell was that :-). Today I might say that I unfortunatelly missed the years with Orbital but you can easilly get a feeling of it after purchasing this record... believe me, it worth of it!!!

This album gets a bad rap, and I can understand why. To arrive at a banquet only to be promptly sent back out the door with a snack tray would be considered by most to be an unpleasant experience. To top it off, when artists are as dynamic as the Hartnoll brothers are, you run into subgroups of fans of their music that have widely different tastes concerning what the "best of" should entail. Most of the tracks included on Work are great. I do, however, question the judgment to include the David Gray collaboration, Illuminate. I like the track, but for many (in the U.S., anyway) Gray's distinctive vocals were too much of a departure from Orbital's bread and butter tracks. The exclusion of the Green Album version of Satan is also a puzzler. Without a doubt, many quality tracks were overlooked when compiling this disc, but then again, the tracks that are included are by no means bad. Personally, I think if they had taken a page from Bjork's book and simultaneously released a "best of" album and a Family Tree style album, people who wanted a little something more out of Work would've been happy, and those just discovering Orbital would've had a better starter kit.