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Song Title Time Price

1. Carry On Wayward Son 5:23 �0.89

2. Point Of Know Return 3:11 �0.89

3. Fight Fire With Fire 3:41 �0.89

4. Dust In The Wind 3:26 �0.89

5. Song For America 9:07 �0.89

6. Hold On 3:52 �0.89

7. No One Together 6:57 �0.89

8. Play The Game Tonight 3:27 �0.89

9. The Wall 4:47 �0.89

10. The Pinnacle 9:36 �0.89

11. The Devil Game 5:05 �0.89

12. Closet Chronicles 6:54 �0.89

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3.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A 'Best Of', With Ups And Downs, 3 Oct 2001

By

Bjorn Clasen (Roll�ngergronn, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Europe) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Best of Kansas (Audio CD)

The harmonious and beautifully arranged 'The Wall' is one of the highlights, a composition you can't help falling for, quite immediately. And there's the classic 'Song For America' which barely needs further presentation - a must-hear.

Another highlight, of course, is the beautiful ballad 'Dust In The Wind' which, however, could have been from any band. Still, its presence on 'Best Of' is highly justified, since it is one of the best of its genre from Kansas.

A song like the opening 'Carry On Wayward Son' is more straight forward, on the edge between prog rock and rock'n'roll - and yet, its arrangement, the guitars, the drums, the piano, are very typical for the Kansas sound.

'Play The Game Tonight' is a typical 1980s song on which the band sounds very much like Foreigner or Asia. That one is not bad. But on 'Perfect Lover', and especially on 'Fight Fire With Fire', this 1980s sound becomes far too pop'ish, and it seems disappointing that these songs have been chosen for a so-called 'Best Of' album.

So all in all, 'The Best Of Kansas' is a compilation album with ups and with downs. Seen from a chronological and musically developmental point of view, the album does provide a good way of getting to know Kansas. But seen from a pure quality point of view, the ten songs are not the ten best ones, and my guess is that any admirer of Kansas will confirm this.

Taste differs, but what Kansas is all about, what Kansas is known and respected for, is their style from the 1970s rather than the 1980s development.

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Amazon.com: 4.1 out of 5 stars (78 customer reviews)

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Collection!, 7 Feb 2002

By Samhot - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Best of (Audio CD)

This is an excellent purchase for those who don't know much about the band Kansas, but would like to get a sampler of some of this excellent band's music.. It has great hard rock staples, as well as longer and elaborate prog-rock epics. To me, that's what makes a best of album spectacular. It has the popular "Carry On Wayward Son," the melodious quirk of "Point Of Know Return," and the inspirational "Hold On," just to name a few. However, my personal favorites are the extended prog numbers, like "Song For America" and "No One Together," which are elaborate and complex in arrangement, with great vocals and melody, and what surprises one is the fact that guitarist Kerry Livgren wrote most of these elaborate pieces by himself. Kerry & company were a talented bunch, and it's nothing to be taken lightly. "The Closet Chronicles" is performed live, yet sounds as crisp as a studio recording. This is another one of those elaborate epics featuring great vocals, with outstanding musicianship. One should know that, for the time being, this live version can only be found on this collection, as it was omitted from the remastering of their live double CD, _Two For The Show_, in order to keep the disc from being double (which was pretty dumb.) It's a real shame, because I believe the live version of this song leaves the studio version in the dust.

Overall, I am very pleased with this recording. If you like complex, elaborate, dramatic and sophisticated bands like Queen, you should love Kansas.

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Place To Start, 2 July 2000

By Bill R. Moore - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Best of (Audio CD)

This is that rare best of album that actually features the band's best of. Not sacrificing longer tracks for shorter pieces (well, Magnum Opus maybe, but...) this collection truly gives a good overview of Kansas. The radio hits are here: Carry On, The Wall, Hold On, Point of No Return, and of course, Dust In The Wind, but even they feature prog overtones. But it's the longer pieces that show the band's excellent musicianship, like Song For America, No One Together, The Pinnacle, and Closet Chronicles. All in all, a good place to start if you're just getting into Kansas.

62 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Columbia revamps this album and improves it 100% but still.., 27 Oct 2003

By David Pearlman "sound fanatic" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Best of (Audio CD)

The original issue of this album, released in 1984, was attrocious. It contained the big hits (Wayward Son, Dust, Hold On) and a few key album rock staples (Point of Know Return, Song for America and The Wall). But the rest of the album was devoted to dire tracks from their 1980s output: The generic hard rock of Fight Fire With Fire, Play the Game Tonight and No One Together, and a perfectly dreadful "previously unreleased" track, Perfect Lover. Their first three albums, surely their most artistically accomplished (if not most commercial) were represented by the lone track "Song for America". In essence, this seemed a desperate effort to paint the group as still vital by placing undue focus on their then-recent output.

In a word: Worthless.

This reissue, in addition to modest improvement in fidelity, gooses the track list to make it much more palatable. The terrible Perfect Lover has been jettisoned completely, and in its place we get three new additions: The Pinnacle (from Masque), The Devil Game (from Song For America) and Closet Chronicles (from Point of Know Return). The album is now a far better balanced view of Kansas' career. There are still many more excellent tracks from their first five albums that could have been used in place of the 1980s filler (and surely one track from the not-completely-horrible Monolith could have been included), but this isn't bad.

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