Essential Heart [LIMITED EDITION] [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Heart

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 26, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Limited Edition, Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00007E8W2
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,396 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential Plus Non-Essential, March 28, 2003

By	Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

When I review a `greatest', `best of', or in this case, `essential', CD I try to consider two aspects of the CD. The first aspect is whether the CD is good in and of itself, and the other is what the CD brings to the collected works of the artist or artists.

This collection is more comprehensive than Heart's previous greatest hits collection. Thus this collection adds another CD of material, much of which is good and worthy of having. Of course, you can hardly go wrong with any Heart music, hard rockers that have been around since the mid-70s. Many of their songs are now standards on classic rock stations and rate as some of the best songs in rock. While nearly anyone reading this review should know those classics, some of the better known are `Barracuda' (that riff is absolutely classic), `Magic Man', `Heartless', `What About Love', `Alone', `Never', and if I don't stop now I'll be repeating the entire CD list. All of their biggest hits are on this CD.

The difficulty is whether this CD meets the standard of `essential'. Certainly the `essential' part of the CD is here, but so are a number of songs that might be good, but are hardly essential. However, I've noticed that some business manager somewhere has creatively figured out that if Heart offers greatest hits CDs with few greatest hits, and they offer this one with two CDs worth that truly contain the greatest hits with some other songs to fill out two CDs, the choice will force most people looking for depth to buy this CD. It's unfortunate that the original Heart CD `These Dreams: Heart Greatest Hits', which really had the greatest hits on a single CD, no longer appears to be available.

The music industry has recognized that one way to milk music that has sold a lot of CDs in the past is to keep repackaging the music in various ways to get people to buy the same music over and over. In the case of this CD, the artists are true greats, the music is great, and the CD was truly unnecessary to release, given that there was a previous CD. This CD gets 4 stars because the music is awesome and well done, subtracting 1 star for overly clever business practices that will anger people and wonder whether they should buy any music at all.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart's best of many "Greatest Hits" compilations, July 28, 2006

By	R. Gorham "RCG2" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

THE BAND: Ann Wilson (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, violin, harp, percussion), Nancy Wilson (guitars, vocals, mandolin, bass, keyboards) and assorted band members throughout the decades - including Roger Fisher (guitar), Steve Fossen (bass), Michael DeRosier (drums), Howard Leese (guitars, keyboards), Mark Andes (guitar, bass), Denny Carmassi (drums).

THE DISCS: (2002) 37 tracks on 2 discs (disc-1 at 79:15, disc-2 at 78:44). Included with the discs is a 6-page foldout containing several band pictures, a 3-page intro from 'Rolling Stone' editor David Wild, what songs came from which albums, and thank you's. Digitally remastered sound. Previous labels include Mushroom, Sony and Capitol. This release - Epic/Capitol label.

ALBUM REPRESENTATION: Dreamboat Annie (4 songs), Little Queen (4), Magazine (1), Dog & Butterfly (2), Bebe le Strange (1), Greatest Hits: Live (3), Private Auditions (1), Passionworks (2), Heart (5), Bad Animals (4), Brigade (5), Rock The House - Live (1), Desire Walks On (3), The Road Home (1).

COMMENTS: Heart is in the same ranks as several other well known artists (i.e. Aerosmith, Chicago, Rush, Motley Crue and Kiss come to mind) with their "Best Of" compilations - and I have to ask how much is enough? To date I know of the following Heart compilations: "Essential Heart", "Greatest Hits: Live", "Greatest Hits 1976-83", "Greatest Hits 1985-95", "The Collection", "The Definitive Collection", "Love Songs", "Ballads & Greatest Hits". With that being said, hands down, this "Essential" collection is THE best one of the bunch. It covers their entire career - from their debut in 1975 ("Dreamboat Annie") through 1994's live and unplugged "The Road Home". Every studio album between these dates are represented (with the exception of "Jupiter's Darling" released after the fact in 2004). All the staples are here - "Crazy On You", "Barracuda", "Magic Man", "Love Alive", "Heartless", "Straight On'", "Tell It Like It Is", "What About Love?" "Never", "These Dreams", Who Will You Run To", "There's The Girl", "Alone", etc. As well as a few hidden live gems with "You're The Voice", "The Road Home" and a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock And Roll". Heart has always sounded great 'live'... even in 2005-06 touring in the small venues... Ann's voice is still an extremely powerful instrument decades later. No compilation is perfect... if there's one out there I haven't seen it. This "Essential" collection is extremely close to being dead on accurate. I've noted only a few minor things wrong: 1. Three glaring song omissions - the live or studio version of "Mistral Wind" (the live track was on "Greatest Hits: Live" and it's a truly chilling version of the song); the title track from the album of the same name "Bebe Le Strange" or "Even It Up", and a deeper (not so glaring) track "RSVP" (from "Bad Animals"); 2. Five songs from "Brigade" is crazy, and 3. One song from "Private Auditions" was probably one song too many (but I respect the fact that they did include something from this mess of an album). There are so many great songs on this set of discs... you will absolutely not go wrong. A great introduction for the beginners, as well as having so many wonderful songs all in one jewel case for the veteran Heart fans. Classic any way you slice it (5 stars).

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stand-up triple into third., June 5, 2003

By	Stretch (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

"The Essential Heart" is probably the one stop Heart record casual fans will need, which is fine, because as a compliation it does it's job gathering all of their big hits and (nearly) all of their noteworthy album cuts.

Their are noteworthy tunes abound. Disc 1 walks through their 70's work, Stand-outs being the mystical feel of "Magic man", the heavy distortion of Barracuda". And the folky riff of "Crazy on you". The latter being the ideal opener.
After a brief dry spell, the hits kept coming, which brings us to Disc 2. Many of these songs have a lighter, more radio friendly sound. Ballad-fare such as the sentimental and heartfelt (no pun intended) "These Dreams".

If there's one questionable omission, it's from the "Little Queen" album: the acoustic "Cry to me". Which was also released as the B-Side to the "Barracuda" single. It definetely deserves it's place alongside these classics and it's absence made my head itch. So for that I must deduct a star from my rating.

Anyways despite that, "The Essential Heart" is definitely one of the better titles in the series. In hindsight given Sony's botched Ozzy Osbourne, Bob Dylan, Blue Oyster Cult, and Billy Joel compilations, they for once got it right. If you're on a budget looking for Heart's music, "The Essential Heart" is the way to go.