Album Details

Hits, Misses, Thrashers & Crashers

RELEASE
May 04, 2004
LABEL
Fuel 2000
GENRES
Pop/Rock, Psychedelic Pop, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Psychedelic, Mod, British Psychedelia, British Invasion, Rock & Roll

Album Review

Consumers should be warned, and Fuel 2000 and their co-conspirators at Varese Sarabande (and, by extension, MCA-Universal-Geffen, who own the latter) should be ashamed of themselves. The cool-looking slipcase and the title hide the fact that this double-CD set is nothing new -- rather, it's all an excuse to repackage (not reissue or repress, but simply repackage) the 2001-vintage Absolutely the Best and the 2002-vintage Odds and Mods. Now, those aren't bad collections, but neither was among the best ever done on the band either, and there are better collections of their music out there, most especially Sanctuary's Ultimate Collection from 2003. This set is OK as far as it goes, which is limited to the group's Immediate Records output, all spacy garage punk with some pretty powerful playing and singing. Missing, however, is the handful of live tracks left behind by the band during their final year, which captured an essential facet of the band's sound as well as encompassing live versions of some of their early hits and repertoire that they didn't preserve in the studio. The annotation by Kent Benjamin is at least thorough, and if all you want is a middling collection of the group's work -- as opposed to something truly comprehensive -- then there are worse releases on which you could spend your money, assuming you don't already own the two individual discs.
Bruce Eder, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Here Come the Nice
  2. Itchycoo Park [Stereo Mix]
  3. Tin Soldier [Stereo Mix][#]
  4. Talk to You
  5. I'm Only Dreaming [Alternate Vocal][Mix]
  6. I Feel Much Better
  7. My Way of Giving
  8. Become Like You
  9. (Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me [Stereo LP Version]
  10. Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire
  11. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake
  12. Lazy Sunday
  13. Song of a Baker
  14. The Universal
  15. Donkey Rides, a Penny, a Glass [Stereo Mix]
  16. Me, You and Us Too [Alternate Stereo Mix]
  17. Afterglow (Of Your Love) [Mono 45 Version]
  18. The Autumn Stone
  19. I Can't Make It [Stereo Version]
  20. Just Passing [Stereo Version]
  21. Get Yourself Together
  22. Something I Want to Tell You
  23. Feeling Lonely
  24. Happy Boys Happy
  25. Things Are Going to Get Better
  26. Green Circles [Version 1]
  27. All Our Yesterdays
  28. Show Me the Way
  29. Eddie's Dreaming
  30. Don't Burst My Bubble
  31. Rollin' Over [Stereo "Clean" Single Edit]
  32. Mad John [US Single Version]
  33. Red Balloon [Stereo Version][Mix]
  34. Call It Something Nice
  35. Every Little Bit Hurts [Stereo Version][Version]
  36. Wham Bam, Thank You Mam [Single Version]