Original Album Series (5 Pack) [Box set]

Many thanks to Rhino for putting this set together. Until recently I didn't own anything from Los Lobos but had been meaning to get into them via the 4 disc best-of set. However when I did eventually delve into Amazon to buy it, I discovered this particular set and bought it instead, since it seemed like a better deal for my purposes. Much cheaper than the box set but still containing a lot of material including lots of stuff that was in the set. It also held out the promise that, if I was to go on to purchase other Los Lobos albums then I wouldn't have to worry about overlap. I certainly haven't been disappointed.

So, what did I get?

In sequential order, the first "official" release from Los Lobos, which was the 7 track EP, "A Time to Dance". It's a great little album. Tight and sprightly music broadly covering tex-mex, R'n,B plus some good old fashioned rock'n'roll, sometimes with touches of all three of these genres in the same number. Guitar driven with accordion and sax. A great bunch of musicians who really knew their instruments backwards. You get the impression that this was what they sounded like, live. As the title emphasised, they were a dance band and it showed. Oh, and that's a great picture on the sleeve.

The first official full length album "How will the Wolf Survive" is the next disc contained in this set. While the sound didn't vary significantly from "Time to Dance", the increase in length allowed for a greater variety of material. Ears were picking up in the critical world at this release and it still gets mentions as one the best Los Lobos albums.

This was followed by "By the Light of the Moon", disc 3 in this set. By this time the Mexican influence appeared to be waning, with only one specifically Mexican number in the set. Equally there was less straight out r'n'r. It's fair to say that Los Lobos' influences were widening and getting absorbed into their overall sound but at the cost of losing some of their uniqueness, their original distinctive sound.

The next 2 albums from the band, that is if you could count their contribution to "La Bamba", the bio of Ritchie Valens, as an album, are not included in this set. Arguably this pair - "La Pistola Y El Corazon" was the other - allowed Los Lobos to wallow in their twin loves of r'n'r and traditional Mexican music.

The last two discs in this set are, "The Neighbourhood" and "Kiko", numbers 6 and 7 originally, i.e. following on from "La Pistola". These two continue the musical progression onwards from "...the Moon". "Kiko" has the reputation of being the most experimental of their releases. From a distance of nearly 20 years - it was 1992 when this one came out - it seems less so. There's less of the naturalistic, almost live, sound, of the early albums and much more electronics, tape-loops and so on. But plenty of other bands have gone down this route in the timeframe so distance has rendered the more mood oriented, what some people call, impressionistic, approach, less unusual. It really depends on whether the material will stand up to the approach, and, by and large, it does. I am finding that my appreciation of "Kiko" increases, the more I play it.

All in all, this is a lot of very varied material for a relatively small outlay. There's a lot present that warrants much more listening which I look forward to.

Not everything contained herein warrants the full 5 stars but there's more than sufficient that is at this level, and very little, if any, that could be termed, throwaway. So, thank you again Rhino. Please keep this service up.

I had all the vinyls, but since they're not easy to listen to in my car or ipod, I bought this great collection of their first albums, it's so cheap for what it offers that you could buy it even if you don't like them! Which is difficult, in my opinion.
Get yourself one of these boxes, adding "Colossal Head" and "This Time".

I saw Los Lobos last year at the Cambridge Folk Festival. They were a great live act, although suffered a little from trying to follow an incredible set from Booker T and his band (which also had the band's own brilliant David Hildago guesting).
I'd bought the compilation : Wolf tracks-which draws from all five of the albums included here as a primer, and while a liked it and enjoyed the set, I wasn't too sure about shelling out for the first five albums even at this reasonable reissue price. After all 5 albums is a lot to work through (even if the first is ep length). Well I'm so glad I went for it. I understand that How will the Wolf survive is reckoned to be their classic but the others are really not far behind.
The early albums are essentially guitar driven, and reminiscent of a variety of styles although predominantly blues and early garage/rock n' roll. I have to say I was relieved there is very little Mexican roots as such, I know that may be politically incorrect, and I can cope with it live but really its their Americana roots side I like. There is plenty of that here. So much so I played all 5 cds straight through. OK there are a few weaker tracks at first listen but the depth of the song writing and the energy of the music really surpassed my expectations.(I also had no idea how much the excellent Alejandro Escoveda owes to this group).
The compilation by no means exhausted the gold-mine that this reissue represents, and the albums work much better in their original context. A pity there is no booklet, but then I have the one in Wolftracks.....and you can't expect more for the price.(The cds come in individual replica sleeves)
A great value introduction to this great band, which will leave you wanting to investigate their later stuff.