Essential Bands, The (NME Presents - The Brand New Collection) - Various Artists

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Not applicable
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	a wide mix of new indie music and some major hits of 2006
Disadvantages:	you may already have alot of these songs

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

It seems just a little odd to write a review of a compilation album to me- after all the album IS a review of the musical year as seen from the people at NME magazine- but really this double album is a good showcase for some of the lesser known bands of the year and a good way to round up a good musical year as well as set the scene for the next...

First of - NME: well the speciality of the magazine is new, mainly indie/alternative music, so clearly an album of songs from 2006 is really going to reflect that kind of music. But in 2006 this was also the music that made a big impact on the charts- people who failed to notice the phenomenal debut of the arctic monkeys clearly weren't paying enough attention. what appears on the album is therefore a list of the major new bands of 2006- and some that i had never heard of at all!

here's the track listing for this double album (we may be here a while-you get alot of music for your money):

CD1
The killers When you were young
Razorlight America
The Automatic Monster
The fratellis Chelsea Dagger
Arctic Monkeys When the Sun goes Down (live)
Dirty Pretty Things Bang Bang, You're Dead
The ordinary boys Lonely at the top
Boy kill boy Suzie
Kaiser Chiefs You Can HAve it All
Franz ferdinand The Fallen
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Gold Lion
Feeder Lost and Found
The Rakes 22 Grand Job
The maccabees X-ray
The MArshals MAke Her Cry
The Rapture Get myself into it
New Young Pony Club Ice Cream
Dogs London Bridge
Wolfmother Woman
Little Man Tate House Party at Boothy's

CD2
Snow Patrol Chasing cars
Keane Is it any wonder
The kooks She moves in her own way
Guillemots Trains to Brazil
Thom Yorke Harrowdown hill
The Charlatons Blackened Blue Eyes
Babyshambles Albion
Embrace Nature's Law
Bloc Party Here We are
Bedouin Soundclash When the night feels my soul
Patrick Wolf Accident and emergancy
Peter bjorn and John Young folks
The dears Ticket to Immortality
BellX1 Rocky took a lover
Joyzipper 1
Just Jack writer's block
Cribs You're going to lose
Milburn Send in the boys
Cord sea of trouble
Scott Matthews Elusive

And really that list is why i like it- i can't say that i was entirely convinced by some of the bands on here through the year, at least not enough to buy a whole album of their work. which isn't to say that i didn't enjoy their songs i just didn't buy them. so while i happily bought the killers, i didn't even think about giving the fratellis or the ordinary boys a try. And here's the one little problem with this album, for those who download singles it's extremely likely that if you liked the song at the time of release you'll already have it- it's not really as though they've picked the less popular songs of the artists to showcase their talents- but rather gone for the blockbuster (snow patrol chasing cars- let's see the biggest selling song of the year- is there anyone left who doesn't have it?) while this hasn't actually been a problem for me cause i don't tend to download singles i can see that it could make it pointless to buy this album if you did.

The real joy for me though was the discovery of bands i apparently missed in 2006- both cds seem to end with bands and songs i haven't heard before so that alongside the more established acts of the year i found NEW music that is really good. Acts like Just Jack and the maccabees are already making noise in 2007 and from their offerings on here ic an see why. ok so maybe it's just me who hasn't heard of the marshals or cord but really it was the discovery of these bands i hadn't heard of that attracted me to the album in the first place- i could have lived without all the arctic monkeys and fratellis, but with the addition of lesser known songs on the album i couldn't resist having a reminder of the very interesting music year 2006 was. So really if you'd like to be introduced to some new bands , or if like me you didn't really notice some of these bands go by but kinda liked the singles then this is a good album to do it with