I was thinking the other day, that years ago it was pretty much exclusively through the original English studio albums that I experienced the Bealtes. But that now that was supplemented by two double cds of BBC recordings, there is the Hollywood bowl recordings and the Anthology CDs. I pulled out Volume 2 after not having listened to it for ages and put it on. And it worked for as an album, it has a bit of a White album hodge podge curio sort of appeal. It lacks the focus and intensity of the original albums but has a kind of relaxed approachability and there is still a lot of creativity in it, it lets you look into their working life in a kind of controlled way.
I think volume two is probably the best one, Real Love fits in better to the body of the album as Free as a Bird doesn't. I think also the later material suits the bits stripped down approach. And the later music was not concentrated enough so relaxing even further for me is slightly depressing.
Overall it was a nice discovery that I could treat this as a very enjoyable album that I could listen to right through and that showed another interesting aspect to the band I love so well.
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Topic: Anthology Volume 2 (Read 1614 times)