The Best of Mott the Hoople - The Island Years 1969-1972
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Track listing
- 1 Rock ‘n’ Roll Queen
- 2 You Really Got Me / Wrath & Wroll (Crossfads)
- 3 At the Crossroads
- 4 Walkin’ With a Mountain
- 5 Thunderbuck Ram
- 6 No Wheels to Ride
- 7 Whiskey Women
- 8 Keep a Knockin’
- 9 Waterlow
- 10 Midnight Lady
- 11 Moon Upstairs
- 12 Death May Be Your Santa Claus
- 13 Your Own Backyard
- 14 Darkness Darkness
- 15 Road to Birmingham
- 16 Growing Man Blues
- 17 Black Scorpio (Momma's Little Jewel)
- 18 Black Hills
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2 Issues
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Kipper!
Published
Excellent cheap (less than £3.00) compilation - does what it says on the tin - 18 tracks nearly 80 mins running time.
Published
"I followed the night 'til the morning sunrise."
Before "All The Young Dudes", before Top of the Pops appearances, before David Bowie, Mott The Hoople were a brilliant live act that could never transfer the tremendous energy that they generated on stage to the studio. It's not that they didn't try, they recorded four solid albums that were met with mass apathy by the record buying public. The eighteen tracks here are taken from these four albums and represent a raw, unpolished and hard rocking Mott The Hoople that were capable of occasional greatness.
The compilation kicks off superbly with one of Mott's best rockers, the still fresh "Rock 'N' Roll Queen", after that it gets a little confused though. Their instrumental cover of "You Really Got Me" probably went down a storm on stage, but in the confines of the studio it just sounds silly. There is then an obvious schism in the band's sound as they can't seem to decide whether they want to become a song-based act where the lyrics are of primary importance, or to become a straight rock act. From the evidence here it's obvious that they could have been either if they had put their mind to it, as "Walkin' With A Mountain" and "Thunderbuck Ram" rock as hard as anything that their more successful peers recorded and "Waterlow" is a heartbreakingly pretty song that makes the most of Ian Hunter's cracked vocals. Every now and then they'd be able to manage to combine their ability to rock with the best with some quite brilliant lyrics, such as "Death May Be Your Santa Clause" or "No Wheels To Ride". The trouble was that they couldn't reconcile these two disparate elements all that often, which resulted in a handful of brilliant rockers, some great lyrics, a rare combination of the both or more often than not material which floundered between being one thing or the other without being all that satisfying.
This compilation does the best job it can pulling together the often chaotic elements of Mott's pre-Dudes career and it gives an accurate representation of a band that occasionally touched the hem of greatness, but required a generous leg-up to stay up there for any length of time.
"I lost everything near and dear to me."
Before "All The Young Dudes", before Top of the Pops appearances, before David Bowie, Mott The Hoople were a brilliant live act that could never transfer the tremendous energy that they generated on stage to the studio. It's not that they didn't try, they recorded four solid albums that were met with mass apathy by the record buying public. The eighteen tracks here are taken from these four albums and represent a raw, unpolished and hard rocking Mott The Hoople that were capable of occasional greatness.
The compilation kicks off superbly with one of Mott's best rockers, the still fresh "Rock 'N' Roll Queen", after that it gets a little confused though. Their instrumental cover of "You Really Got Me" probably went down a storm on stage, but in the confines of the studio it just sounds silly. There is then an obvious schism in the band's sound as they can't seem to decide whether they want to become a song-based act where the lyrics are of primary importance, or to become a straight rock act. From the evidence here it's obvious that they could have been either if they had put their mind to it, as "Walkin' With A Mountain" and "Thunderbuck Ram" rock as hard as anything that their more successful peers recorded and "Waterlow" is a heartbreakingly pretty song that makes the most of Ian Hunter's cracked vocals. Every now and then they'd be able to manage to combine their ability to rock with the best with some quite brilliant lyrics, such as "Death May Be Your Santa Clause" or "No Wheels To Ride". The trouble was that they couldn't reconcile these two disparate elements all that often, which resulted in a handful of brilliant rockers, some great lyrics, a rare combination of the both or more often than not material which floundered between being one thing or the other without being all that satisfying.
This compilation does the best job it can pulling together the often chaotic elements of Mott's pre-Dudes career and it gives an accurate representation of a band that occasionally touched the hem of greatness, but required a generous leg-up to stay up there for any length of time.
"I lost everything near and dear to me."
Published
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