Generally speaking I think "Best of/Hits" compilations of one band are a good idea, especially on CDs, as it allows both the poorer ones among us to renew our aged vinyl collection and 'newbies' to a band to get a good feel for them before leaping into the rest of their material.
However "Eternally Damned - The Very Best of The Damned" I find to be quite a misrepresentation of the bands' 25 year career and numerous albums (I have 11 but I'm sure there's more!). How all that can be summarised on one 20 track CD I can't fathom, and on this one it definitely hasn't been. True, there's a glut of 'Best of' albums for The Damned - "The Light at the End of the Tunnel" being currently the best one of the bunch.
"Eternally Damned" misses out great chunks, in my opinion, with certain eras of the bands' career being missed altogether. This is apparently down to the fact that as they have changed record labels a number of times the rights to certain songs can't be released to other companies by some of them - therefore leaving any subsequent "Best of" likely to have gaping holes.
Tracklisting: Neat Neat Neat New Rose Problem Child Don't Cry Wolf Stretcher Case Sick of Being Sick Love Song Smash it Up I Just Can't be Happy today History of the World (Part 1) White Rabbit Disco Man Nasty There Ain't no Sanity Clause The Shadow Of Love Grimly Fiendish Is it a Dream Alone Again Or Gigolo
Now, if you know The Damned's work you can see at a glance by the tracklisting what I mean - both their very early days and their mid-80s era are well covered with clutches of tracks from the same album. But there are great gaps where albums such as "Strawberries" are not represented at all.
Indeed there are 3 tracks included from their second album, "Music for Pleasure", which the band themselves say was their lowest point and they were not happy with the album and indeed it is a sub-standard album - so why 3 inclusions on a "best of"?! To fill it - that's why.
Their first (and best for me) ever release - "New Rose" is second of this CD - surely it should be first???
I find on the whole that although this CD compilation is a pleasure to listen to as a committed Damned fanatic, but it is somewhat poorly described as "The Very best of" and shouldn't be taken by the uninitiated to be so.
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"I got a New Rose....." *sings loud in her punk voice* :-)
I was lucky enough to see the Damned LIVE at Oxford Poly....oooo way back.....can't even remember the god damned year!!!
fireman1 13.04.2001 16:14
smash it up and new rose are in my opinion two of the best all time punk records ever........great opinion, its nice to see there is still a few punk fans still around......
reguards
colin
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