ANTHOLOGY 1967-1982

IN CASE OF ANTHOLOGY ATTACK FOLLOW THESE RULES !

Last time I checked there were over 50 Hawkwind antholgies. How long is it going to take the Guiness Book Of World Records to accord these guys some sort of honourary entry ? This is perhaps the most complete overview of the undisputed kings of space rock released by the various labels covering what are arguably their most important years from 1969 to 1982. All the best is here from that period and if what your looking for is that proverbial "if you have to have one album by this band then this is it album" then, well, this is it. There are a few lesser known tracks, a few live tracks and a couple of rarities thrown in for posterity and it would be hard for any long time Hawkfan to deny the rationality selections made for this collection. Arranged more or less in chronological order this is a very accessible package for the uninitiated and if one is not enlightened by anything here any further excursions into the Hawkwind universe are pretty much futile.

My earlier acquaintance with Hawkwind is very limited but I thought they might be worth closer listening. The quick listening of this anthology (using skip button a lot!) didn't change the situation notably. In short, this was painfully bad attempt of an introduction, mostly due to low sound quality, but I still have some faith in their studio albums which I'm going to borrow.

I totally disagree with the previous reviewer who wrote "if you have to have one album by this band then this is the album". No! OK, I'm not qualified to say whether this is a good compilation what comes to the track list itself (I have my doubts, because I didn't actually enjoy any track - in this form - enough to make a copy), but almost all material here are live recordings and, as I said, the sound quality is not very good. Maybe this is more recommendable to fans who own several studio albums.

The package includes a long historical essay of Hawkwind (at least up to the early eighties). The numerous changes in the line-up are all there in detail. But even the essay, printed in painfully small font, is not quite ideal for a new listener, because the point of view follows the live-oriented contents of the CD's, and therefor the given knowledge of their studio output is very limited. The track infos don't include the original album source which would be very useful.

So, I decided to ignore this anthology as an unsuccesful introduction. But there WAS one track, a NON-live one, that I liked and copied to computer (to be part of some prog compilation later), it was called 'Wastelands of Sleep'. A pulsating piece of space rock, the very kind of Hawkwind music I'm hoping to find more. And the live material here just isn't the right place to look for it.