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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Futures | |||
| 2. I Have Seen | |||
| 3. You're My Flame | |||
| 4. Destiny | |||
| 5. Throw It All Away | |||
| 6. Polaris | |||
| 7. Everything Up [Zizou] | |||
| 8. Home | |||
| 9. Mr McGee | |||
| 10. Swing | |||
See all 16 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Distractions (Bugs In The Attic Remix) | |||
| 2. Home | |||
| 3. Lo | |||
| 4. You're My Flame | |||
| 5. Today | |||
| 6. Everything Up [Zizou] | |||
| 7. Everything Up [Zizou] | |||
| 8. Destiny | |||
| 9. Futures | |||
| 10. Everything Up [Zizou] | |||
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See all 14 tracks on this disc
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Product Description
Review
Sleepy, reassuring, perfect for "tasteful" middle-class dinner parties attended by bored couples with any rough-edge individuality long since quashed–Zero 7 can absorb a lot of perfectly fair, pertinent slights and still somehow sound impressive. Perhaps it's because there's so little going on at the surface here that the avid music fan is forced to scrutinise, to prod the soporific veneer and see if there any crawly wriggly things underneath.
If you peer hard enough, there are. Subtly, slow-burningly, Zero 7's wispy, placid emissions reveal charm and interest value; even the occasional surprise. This Best Of (with an extra disc of remixes, some old, some new) is every bit as "chill-out", or "ambient", or "very 2001", as you know it will be. Yet if you've always dismissed them as Air without the "we're-French-and-therefore-innately-arty" card to play, listen carefully. There's (mildly) inventive, (faintly) challenging stuff going on. Their harmless, scare-no-horses breeze carries a few grits.
It's difficult to find the mark of the auteur in a duo (Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker) whose identity (or lack of) was defined by shifting, usually female, guest vocalists. A decade and four albums in, from 2001's Mercury-nominated Simple Things via 2006's Grammy-nominated The Garden to 2009's Yeah Ghost, Zero 7 have mastered the genre of vague, personality-swerving, reasonably enchanting, light groove-pop. Big on atmosphere, tiny on character. Zoom in, however, and there's intrigue in the way Futures eases in like something from Pink Floyd's Meddle before climaxing in swathes of scratching. The snarled vocal on You're My Flame is so repressed it's howling. Even the laid-back, prone Polaris (which could pass as a Moon Safari outtake) breaks midway into fat beats and squawks. Home is droopily mellow until atonal horns and strings slide in from nowhere. Similarly, Distractions builds slowly from generic to weird, turbo-boosted trip hop with shades of Portishead borrowing shades of Isaac Hayes.
The remixes push further, with those by Stereolab and Metronomy the most heated. Yes, this at-heart innocuous music is for relaxing into, with no insolent questions asked. Dare to ask a few though, and it often responds with spry, fluid answers.
--Chris RobertsFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Audio CD
Being a huge Zero 7 (and Sia) fan, this album covers all of my wants and needs regarding their music. Because of this album, I went out and bought all of the ones I was missing. A must have for anyones collection.
Format:Audio CD
What's not to love about a collection of Zero 7's best tracks? If you're been a fan but not bought anything from the band in a while I highly recommend this collection if only for the great tunes featured from last years "yeah ghost" album.
That's not to say that everything is roses in the garden of Zero 7 - If you have kept up with the recent albums then the only reason to pick up Record is the remixes which are a little bit of a mixed bag. 2 remixes for most of the tracks? Was that really necessary? A quick search on Spotify will yield a wealth of incredibly remixes of all the bands best tracks so why double up?
All in all though - if you're strapped for space on an MP3 player then this is a great way to Zero 7 with you in bite -sized form
That's not to say that everything is roses in the garden of Zero 7 - If you have kept up with the recent albums then the only reason to pick up Record is the remixes which are a little bit of a mixed bag. 2 remixes for most of the tracks? Was that really necessary? A quick search on Spotify will yield a wealth of incredibly remixes of all the bands best tracks so why double up?
All in all though - if you're strapped for space on an MP3 player then this is a great way to Zero 7 with you in bite -sized form
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
OK- So the cd is 12 tracks long, and for that you get six tracks of 'real' Zero7 and six tracks of remixes. Lets start with the first six. The obvious ones are in there, Destiny and Waiting line (they had to be), but are joined by a further four which are far from 'Their best moments' in my opinion. Possibly desperate to draw attention to their latest effort 'Yeah Ghost' the band chuck in two meaningless tracks from that album, which could be considered as their weakest album to date. I'm glad to see Futures in their though, although I'm not sure if it would feature in my top six. You also get the perfectly fine 'I Have Seen'; great track in the context of the album but pretty thin on it's own two feet. Choosing six classic Zero7 tracks was always going to be difficult, but if they consider these six to be their best, then maybe we're not on the same page after all. They also completely omit their wonderful and oft oversighted second album 'When It Falls', failing to find a single track on that album worthy of this collection. Not even Somersault? Really? I may be biased as it's my favorite of their albums, but I can't understand for a second why they'd plump for a track like 'Mr McGee' over anything from When It Falls. I was slightly alienated by Yeah Ghost, thinking maybe the band had regressed to Basement Jaxxx-type radio friendly club music, but of the couple of tracks that stood out to me- Everything Up(zizou) and Pop Art Blue, only the former is represented by a very odd and very thin remix. Which brings me neatly to the six remixes. Chucking in alt versions of their best tracks is a wonderful idea, and a fresh approach to what is essentially a 'best of', but do we really need six of them? There are as many remixes as there are originals and unfortunately they are all virtually unrecognisable from the originals. All six remixes are much in the same format- generic club beats with the occasional sampled (sometimes mangled) vocal from the original track, but leaving out all the texture and subtlety that made the track so great in the first place. To put it bluntly, they could have put any dance track in there and I wouldn't have noticed the difference. You also end up with two versions of You're My Flame- neither of which are as good as the original, which isn't on this collection. Like I've said above- I believe in the concept of throwing in remixes or different concepts of their songs, but this is a completely wasted opportunity. Why not throw in an acoustic version of one of their great tracks? Imagine if you will a reimagined 'Destiny' or 'In The Waiting Line' with only a lush acoustic guitar and Sophie Barker's vocals..... An orchestral version of 'Give It Away' or 'Look Up'...... Or why not use 'Crosses', Zero7's own interpretation of Jose Gonzales touching track? Whoever pulls the strings at Zero7 HQ obviously couldn't see this far and as it is, we have an album that I for one will not be passing on as an introduction to the band to anyone that may not have heard of them.
Disappointing.
Disappointing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
What a waster..
Zero 7 is always on top of my shelf. I play their songs at least 4-5 times a week. Sometimes over and over again, each day. Read more
Published 22 months ago by B. Waruna Gomis
Track 6 Only
I comment on track 6 only of this compilation. An instrumental with an opening not too unlike `The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair ` - a very old Sunsilk Shampoo Ad. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Truefacts
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