DEFINITIVE COLLECTION

Not as "definitive" as the Collection which is not "definitive"

This "Definitive collection" is actually slightly inferior to the "Collection" compilation released by Castle Communications. Here we have 17 tracks taken from the band's second (self titled) album through to "More than ever", their last album with CBS/Columbia. Thus nothing is included from the band's first album which featured Al Kooper, and nothing from "Brand new day" or "Nuclear blues". In fairness, the omission of the later albums is no loss, but Kooper's "Child is the father to man" album is a key part of the BS&T story.

The tracks which appear here are obvious choices, naturally including the excellent singles "Spinning wheel", "You've made me so very happy", and "Hi-de-ho". Those from the later albums will be less familiar, although the cover of the Beatles "Got to get you into my life" demonstrates how the band had moved from jazz rock into R&B as their career progressed.

There is little here to demonstrate the more complex jazz rock experimentation of the second and third albums, but this is more than compensated for by the wonderful voice of David Clayton-Thomas. DC-T came, went away and came back again during the period covered by the compilation, but he features on the majority of the tracks.

In all, a decent, if rather superficial introduction to the music of Blood Sweat and Tears, but the better option is to obtain their early studio albums.

Far from being "definitive", this compilation is focused on the two most commercial and most successful albums, the second and the third. Totalling 9 tracks out of 17, this makes the bulk of the disc and for me this was a good reason to buy it. The remaining space of the release is filled up by 3 tracks from the fourth album, one from "New Blood", one from "New City" and 3 from "More Than Ever". And this is really problematic selection of songs.

The compilation is obviously targeted to mainstream pop buying audience so it includes several awful and sleezy pop soul ballads. While ommission of the tracks from poor mid-1970s albums is a reasonable move, a serious flaw of this disc is that it completely ignored arguably the best debut album with Al Kooper, "Father Is Child To The Man" as well as the last two funk and jazz influenced BST albums, "Brand New Day" and "Nuclear Blues".

Most of the songs were mastered using 20-bit technology "high definition remastering", so the tech nerds might want to check it out. Apart from that, "Definitive Collection" is for completists and for those who don't mind having a collection of hits bearing the band's name for occassional listening. Prog and jazz rock experts will want to stick to the original first 3 studio albums, not bothering with largely wasted compilations as this one.

PERSONAL RATING: 3/5

P.A. RATING: 2/5