Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Truly exceptional Career overview of Bad Brains best work, April 15, 2004
For those new to Bad Brains, which is a band I've only very recently discovered, and only knew about them after having listened to their furious "Pay To Cum" single, which completely captured my attention. This, a collection of their most popular songs mixed with some of their hardest most fiercely intense riffs Encapsulates everything that was so brilliant and massively influential about the band .There's something about their fusion of Reggae with volatile Hardcore punk, that makes their music all the more accessible, and this retrospective seems to pick songs from their two greatest albums, the self-titled "Bad Brains" & "I against I", as well as cherry picking the best from subsequent albums "Rock for Light", "Quickness". It must be said that for all the fiery guitar workouts, and rapidly delivered lyrics that defined their greatest work, there is are strange elements of melodic & Dynamic stylistic change here....the backing chorus of Saillin' On bring surprising harmonies to the song and impress immensely, and the dramatic rhythmic changes through most songs (sometimes dramatically changing several times in a song), neatly sidestep and criticisms of repetition, that is not only unexpected, but enthusiastically encouraged by the listener. But this wouldn't be Bad Brains without the reggae side of things taking centre stage, and ¾ quarters of the way into the 23 track album the band excel themselves with some well chosen & expertly played Dub/reggae that introduces itself into the track listing perfectly before the constant riffs becomes all a bit too much to digest in one sitting. And the surprising thing is how staggeringly accomplished the reggae tracks sound, making this no mere token effort with "I and I Survive", "I Luv I Jah", "The Prophets Eye" & a previously unreleased "Riot Squad" pure to be exceptional icing on the cake. For a person new to the Bad Brains, I strongly recommend you do what I did, which was to purchase this album, and then if it completely hooks you in the way it did me, seek out their studio albums, but I can't recommend a more excellent starting point than this career overview.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Someone finally does something right., April 7, 2007
This collection is exactly what it promises on the front sticker: a "Definitive" collection.
It shows you every side of the Brains, from their blistering hardcore awesomeness to their forays into grotesque sounding metal (not that the metal songs are of low quality, but man is that some ugly, evil riffing on "Voyage To Infinity" and "Soul Craft"), and, of course, some Reggae songs at the end.
Thats what makes this disc so great, you see every side of the Bad Brains.
If you've never heard the Bad Brains before, they're one of the best, if not THE best, hardcore band of all time. Nobody sounded like these rastafarian dudes. Dr. Know was an amazing guitarist (he started out playing jazz fusion), playing tight, furious riffs and ripping out solos like no ones business, HR had a very unique voice with unbelieveable range, at times he sounds very operatic and soulful and then one second later can be screaming like some crazy evil dwarf baby. Earl Hudson (HR's brother) plays drums at light speed, all the while refusing to play those simple "boom-chick, boom-chick" kind of drumlines like most other hardcore drummers. Finally, Darryl Jenifer played bass very well (check out the solo he performs on the live cut of "Big Takeover" on this disc!) and, along with Hudson, kept the band locked in tight at whatever speed they played at.
And they could turn it on and off at the drop of a hat, too. They had lots of tempo shifts and stops in their songs, something that keeps the hardcore numbers from getting too repetitious (something plenty of other hardcore bands suffer from).
So with this disc, you get over an hour's worth of their best songs, every track lovingly re-mastered to sound as good as possible. I'm also very happy that they did vinyl transfers for the "Rock For Light" tracks too, as the CD issue of that album was artificially sped up for some mysterious reason. So you get to hear songs like "Sailin' On" and "At The Movies" at the speeds they were meant to be heard at, something fans who don't own the vinyl edition of that album(i.e. me) will be glad to have.
The bottom line is: The Bad Brains were a truly original force in music, and this disc is an excellent representation of who they were and what they did. It's easily the best single disc purchase of these guys, though after hearing their stuff, you'll probably want to buy more.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great collection of Bad Brains material, November 16, 2005
This collection spans the best of the career of these DC/NYC reggae/hardcore musicans. Later stuff is OK....but Bad Brains aren't the same without HR's "throat".
If you have never heard the band before this makes a good primer, to get you into them (and they are counted as influences by lots of bands: Beastie Boys to Living Colour & No Doubt (the last two have covered Bad Brains songs both live and in the studio). So if you like what you hear on this disc....make the purchases to get yourself the rest of their library (especially the early stuff) !
My only complaint with this compilation would be that I prefer the SST label recordings versions of the "I Against I" era material. I am sure not having them on here is more a result of label infighting, so at least recordings from that era are still here for inclusion.
Other than that.....great, great stuff !!!
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