THE BEST OF THE NICE

At the end of the 60s many musicians decided to play something new and among them some geniuses ended up inventing new forms of music that were defined Progressive over the years. Keith Emerson (one of those geniuses who will forever be regretted) formed The Nice. This band merged Rock and classical music (also reprising / covering classical music compositions) and managed to be innovative and inspirational for other bands (read the Dutch band Ekseption, another band with the same concept!) But failed to evolve because the musicians involved and the label didn't have the means for Keth Emerson not to want to form a better band, the ELP with Greg Lake and Carl Palmer. But this was also due to the fact that The Nice Progressive failed to emerge from an embryonic (albeit 100% symphonic) form.

The problem with some compilations is that they are produced by labels that specialize in compilations and are in the catalog for a short time. And, sometimes, the problem is that these labels are ephemeral (or a little more). Moreover with The Nice it is easy to build a compilation that is the definitive album. This is for me this compilation. I will not describe every song as I never do this by reviewing a compilation. I will talk about the style, a sort of very powerful and symphonic Rock, sometimes with heavy (and badly aged) arrangements and sometimes still fresh and engaging as at the end of the 60s. In fact it should be noted that The Nice was a poorly produced band (other albums sounded much better at the time) and this was also due to the fact that the musicians (Keith Emerson aside) seem to be a bit forced to play music which they fail to make it look totally natural (but it wasn't that obvious at the time). And at the time The Nice was much more evolved than similar bands, which still managed to mix all the elements in one solution.

"The Best Of The Nice" has become an extremely rare compilation today. But, given the songs included in it, it's not wrong to call it a sort of definitive The Nice album.