Track listing
- 1 The Move - Tonight
- 2 The Move - Chinatown
- 3 The Move - Down On the Bay
- 4 The Move - California Man
- 5 Electric Light Orchestra - 10538 Overture
- 6 Wizzard - Ball Park Incident
- 7 Wizzard - Carlsberg Special
- 8 Wizzard - See My Baby Jive
- 9 Wizzard - Bend Over Beethoven
- 10 Wizzard - Angel Fingers
- 11 Wizzard - I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
- 12 Dear Elaine
- 13 Forever
- 14 Music to Commit Suicide To
- 15 Goin' Down the Road
- 16 The Premium Bond Theme
- 17 Green Glass Windows
- 18 It's Not Easy
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2 Reviews
Cats have nine lives, haven't they? If they fall off the roof, they always land safely on their feet and so on. Why I am talking about our feline house-friends in a record review? See it as a very heavy-handed attempt to highlight the fact that Roy Wood had at least three different lives, musically speaking. His hairstyles and colours must lie way over hundred. But masquerade and outrageousness are always good comrades for those who want to be on stage, but are habitually shy and introvert. Just like old Ron.
Starting out as a teen with The Move and quickly positioning several of his songs in the Top Ten, this charming as well as childish and sometimes outright eccentric fellow made his very own contribution to sixties underground-pop. The last singles of The Move, then already transforming into the Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne, are featured here. And even though the members were already destined for new projects, those songs show how good the band actually was at writing nice little feel-good-pop ditties, although the sudden change to a more caricature-like and sentimental rock ‘n’ roll parody already should foreshadow the shrill novelty retro-style of the plastic-glam reincarnation in Wizzard.
As history has shown, E.L.O. was meant to become much more famous than The Move, but Wood wasn’t too happy in this properly beatleesque, but also often over-ambitious outfit. So he went on the prowl and took some other cats from the gang to form Wizzard. This was all about teeny-bop, make-up and weird clothing and colourful lights. A terrible row it wasn’t, but certainly also no real magic, more of a cheap trick there to gain commercial success by fooling around with Spector’s wall of sound and churning out a glittering version of fifties pop and (to make sure the royalties come in regular intervals) a Christmas-single. The b-sides, though, contained some clever instrumentals.
After this project had died as the flavour of the month, Wood took a little cat lick and returned to his more obscure solo-recordings with a strong love for the absurd and unexpected instrumentations (nice one with the bagpipes!). Often playing all the instruments himself, this phase of his oeuvre is hit-and-miss, with some homages as well as musical parodies, bizarre instrumentals (approaching a limit with the relaxed “Music to commit suicide by”) and later on some irrelevant attempts at cheesy eighties-pop.
This low-budget collection superficially covering all of those variants mentioned is quite random and of uneven quality. It is doubtful whether it gives a representative cross-section of Roy Wood’s three (off-beat) careers. So, if this is supposed to be the crème of the crop, I’ll stick to The Move any day.
Highlights: Tonight, China Town, Carlsberg Special, Going down the road.
Lowlights: Angel fingers, Green glass windows.
Starting out as a teen with The Move and quickly positioning several of his songs in the Top Ten, this charming as well as childish and sometimes outright eccentric fellow made his very own contribution to sixties underground-pop. The last singles of The Move, then already transforming into the Electric Light Orchestra with Jeff Lynne, are featured here. And even though the members were already destined for new projects, those songs show how good the band actually was at writing nice little feel-good-pop ditties, although the sudden change to a more caricature-like and sentimental rock ‘n’ roll parody already should foreshadow the shrill novelty retro-style of the plastic-glam reincarnation in Wizzard.
As history has shown, E.L.O. was meant to become much more famous than The Move, but Wood wasn’t too happy in this properly beatleesque, but also often over-ambitious outfit. So he went on the prowl and took some other cats from the gang to form Wizzard. This was all about teeny-bop, make-up and weird clothing and colourful lights. A terrible row it wasn’t, but certainly also no real magic, more of a cheap trick there to gain commercial success by fooling around with Spector’s wall of sound and churning out a glittering version of fifties pop and (to make sure the royalties come in regular intervals) a Christmas-single. The b-sides, though, contained some clever instrumentals.
After this project had died as the flavour of the month, Wood took a little cat lick and returned to his more obscure solo-recordings with a strong love for the absurd and unexpected instrumentations (nice one with the bagpipes!). Often playing all the instruments himself, this phase of his oeuvre is hit-and-miss, with some homages as well as musical parodies, bizarre instrumentals (approaching a limit with the relaxed “Music to commit suicide by”) and later on some irrelevant attempts at cheesy eighties-pop.
This low-budget collection superficially covering all of those variants mentioned is quite random and of uneven quality. It is doubtful whether it gives a representative cross-section of Roy Wood’s three (off-beat) careers. So, if this is supposed to be the crème of the crop, I’ll stick to The Move any day.
Highlights: Tonight, China Town, Carlsberg Special, Going down the road.
Lowlights: Angel fingers, Green glass windows.
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One of the best single disc introductions to the wonderful world of Roy Wood. It includes latter-day Move singles like "Chinatown", "Tonight" and "California Man" (the latter covered by Wood-o-philes Cheap Trick on _Heaven Tonight_), ELO's brilliant debut "10538 Overture" (actually written by Jeff Lynne), Wizzard hits like "See My Baby Jive", as well as solo material, and a few rarities. There are more comprehensive compilations available, but I can't fault this for the beginner. I listen to this CD a _lot_!
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Catalog
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