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Track Listings
| 1. Girl From Mars |
| 2. Kung Fu |
| 3. Angel Interceptor |
| 4. Goldfinger |
| 5. Oh Yeah |
| 6. A Life Less Ordinary |
| 7. Wild Surf |
| 8. Shining Light |
| 9. Burn Baby Burn |
| 10. Walking Barefoot |
| 11. Sometimes |
| 12. Clones |
| 13. Orpheus |
| 14. Star - Crossed |
| 15. You Can't Have It All |
| 16. Twilight Of The Innocents |
| 17. Return Of White Rabbit |
| 18. Arcadia |
| 19. Jack Names The Planets (2011 Rerecording) |
Product Description
Review
Fast forward and these days they spend much of their time denying an imminent split and, as if bored with the second tier, keeping themselves interested (and interesting) with such innovative ideas as an A-Z Tour (which, yes, was a tour which started in Aldershot and finished in Zennor, in Cornwall, taking in towns in alphabetical order along the way). Oblivious to the way the singles market is going, the band also released one every fortnight from October 2009 to September 2010.
Their problem is what happened in-between. For all the joy of their Ramones-like singles, they were overly dependent on Tim Wheeler as (almost) sole songwriter. Moreover, they never quite managed to build on that first flush of fresh-faced excitement, they never quite managed to make an unambiguously fantastic album, and they never quite managed to export their revolution. Tellingly they decided to stop making proper albums after 2007's knowingly titled Twilight of the Innocents failed to break the UK top 30, and this new set is actually their second best of. For the record, 11 of this collection's chronologically sequenced 19 tracks, plus a pointlessly re-recorded version of Jack Names the Planets, appeared on 2002's Intergalactic Sonic 7"s, which also included a disc of B sides and rarities.
This new release's carrot to Ash completists is Teenage Wildlife, an Ewan McGregor-narrated documentary of their hedonistic early years - it's featured on a DVD alongside all their music videos. But from an exclusively musical perspective, these tracks offer reminders of just how close they came to cracking it, especially early on. Girl From Mars, Goldfinger, Oh Yeah and Shining Light are pure pop pebbles of the highest order, with walloping scarf-waving choruses, taut verses, all infused with the sheer thrill of music making that has never quite departed.
Even so, an understandably and not entirely artistically destructive weariness seeps into the later material, notably the self-explanatory You Can't Have It All and the string-laden Twilight of the Innocents, but their more rueful side suits middle-aged Ash well. This may be a study of what might have been, but what Ash actually were (and are) wasn't bad either.
--John Aizlewood
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
CD Description
Customer Reviews
This edition (CD+DVD) is a 'must to have' for the fans that knew ash from the middle of their career and you'll find the hits in a very well made compilation.
I hope, in the furute, Rhino or Warner launch a Blu-ray disc with ALL the videos. It'd be a 5 star review.
This really is the "After they where famous" collection, anyone who started to listen to Ash after they cut the songs which became Top of The Pops smashes or where set to music videos which where strangely similar to boy bands of the nineties will enjoy this collection. If you have never heard of Ash before and would like a collection which spans their most popular output this is also a good place to start.
However, I would seriously suggest that if you have the albums Trailer and 1977 or the combination album release of both albums then you have the best of Ash, tunes which are not included here, such as Uncle Pat, are on these albums and some of the more recent material (I would suggest tracks 12 to 18) which is disappointing by comparison with earlier material, will be safely omitted altogether. The rerecording of Jack Names The Planets is disappointing, it is not as quirky as the one on Trailer and has not got the odd dialogue lead into the track itself which the original has which appeared like some kind of interview about the song's title.
I have heard that a lot of this material has been rerecorded or remastered, I dont think there's a massive difference in sound quality, the drumming and vocals are much the same as earlier recordings.... Read more ›
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