Heart - Essential Heart
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Free Music Notes for Essential Heart
Free Music Review: A solid compilation of Heart's early and later material
Hit: 5 Stars
Next to Blondie, Heart is one of my personal favorite bands that I grew up listening to (especially their '80s material). Over the years I have seen so many best of/greatest hits released that it has gotten a bit silly, even for this lifelong fan. I mean really? How many best of/greatest hits cds do we really need? And I really think that anything with the two words "The Essential..." tacked on before the artist/band's name is getting a bit cheesy and out of control. I'm just waiting for "The Essential Kathie Lee Gifford" to come out (not). These "Essential" compilations have really spread like a fungus, and not necessarily in a good way. Still, after seeing the tracklist for the Heart compilation, I thought this compilation looked quite appealing especially since they included one of my personal favorite Heart songs that wasn't included on past comps, "Secret". That and the band's live covers of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" and that cavity-inducing ballad "Unchained Melody" intrigued me. Well,I loved the Led Zep cover but loathe the "Unchained Melody" cover. That is another song that should never be covered. Hated the original, hate Heart's version. Overall the inclusion of both of the band's '70s and '80s material was a great idea. I think we have seen enough comps of just the band's '80s music or their '70s music. I thank the gods that they didn't include that treacly ballad "Almost Paradise" or the cheeseball "Surrender" (like on their last greatest hits (from the past decade). I think the live version of "You're The Voice" is a lot better than the studio version. I still loathe "All I Wanna Do...". Hideous song, and of course written by Mutt Lange. Blech! Overall solid compilation, even though anything with the word "Essential" tacked on is getting tiresome and cheesy IMO.Free Music Review: Classic, But...
Hit: 5 Stars
This is indeed the best HEART compilation to date, out of the many "Hits" compilations the Wilson Sisters have been honored with in the past decade. "The Essential Heart" includes classic hits and music from the two gold and platinum adorned HEART eras of the 70's and 80's, which continued well into the 90's before the band fell into a lower profile. However, disc one is a bit cluttered and somewhat wasted on such pointless "filler" tracks as their insipid teasing cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock And Roll" and the classic jazz-pop torcher, "Unchained Melody"...with all the Heart "Live" cd-albums still in print, WHY rehash these two boring tracks? Ann & Nancy should have preferred to wisely mine their catalogue so as to dazzle their multi-generations of fans with remastered inclusions of more VINTAGE and impeccable HEART gems such as "White Lightning & Wine", the gorgeously aged "Just The Wine", their artistically defining epic "Rockin'Heaven Down", the gritty rocker "Bebe Le Strange" and possibly their enchanting "Devil Delight" tracks instead of the ill chosen and mindless "Little Queen", "Kick It Out", "Silver Wheels" and the two before mentioned pointless "live" tracks. The second disc is a perfectly chosen and chronilogically paced "hit singles" collection of the band's second coming, sets the pace and poises Heart for their third [forthcoming] era of commercial success. Hopefully, the Wilsons will continue to impress us for many more years to come.Free Music Review: BEST HEART COMPILATION MONEY CAN BUY
Hit: 5 Stars
I remember the mid- 1980s because of Heart not vice-versa. I don't relish the `80s simply because they were the 1980s. It was "about he effin' music" to me. I wasn't watching MTV until the late 1980s so whoever says mid-`80s Heart was a media creation needs to get a clue. Whoever saw their gold mold era stage shows knows Ann & Nancy were not just total glam & fascination, but also the very real thing which made it even more stupendous to watch. I'm not going to make a ridiculous review of each song because a person can simply listen to a clip instead.
This is the best & most comprehensive Heart compilation you can buy and the mid `80s Heart is represented well on this cd as it should be. The problem is that Heart's early `80s songs "Rockin' Heaven Down" & "City's Burning" are not on here because the former got reasonable radio play in 1980 & the latter got some radio play in 1982 and even TV play on MTV or somewhere. This myth that mid-1980s Heart was a MTV creation will last longer than the claim that Van Halen doesn't eat browm M&Ms. Ask someone who was at their shows(who's telling the truth) before you make that assumption.
They needed TONS of pictures to accompany this cd but instead chose a bad one to front the cover of this cd. This compliation needs to be redone so lots of pictures to be added along with the hits "Rockin' Heaven Down" and "City's Burning to it. It was sheer incompetence & not an oversight that these 2 hits were not on this cd. "Ring Them Bells" wasn't a radio hit and doesn't belong on here.
Free Music Review: The Ultimate Girl Group Gets The Ultimate Greatest Hits Set
Hit: 5 Stars
Heart was the first rock and roll group to be led by a woman to break into the mainstream. In fact, they were led by two woman, sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson. With 20 top 40 hits and a string of hit albums, they are certainly the ultimate rock and roll group. After numerous slipshod greatest hits collections, fans finally got what they were looking for in 2002 with "The Essentail Heart", a comprehensive two disc sampling of all their best songs that any music fan should own.
"The Essential Heart" includes all of Heart's most well known songs, including "Magic Man", "Crazy On You", "Barracuda" (with one of the all time greatest guitar riffs of all time), "What About Love", "Never", "These Dreams" and "Alone".
To entice hardcore fans who already own these songs are in for a surprise because there are a lot of songs on here yet to appear on a Heart collection. I'm glad the producers of the album chose to include one of my favorite Heart songs ever, 1991's "Secret". From the somber keyboards to Anne's amazing vocals, this is an amazing song. Also, I am pleased that songs like "This Man Is Mine", "How Can I Refuse", "Allies", "Unchained Melody" (yes, the song from "Ghost") and "Black On Black II" were included as well
Coming with this collection is beautiful booklet filled with nice photos and excellent liner notes by music historian David Wild. You can't ask for a better collection of Heart's music than this. You must buy this cd.
Free Music Review: Finally an "Essential" release that actually lives up to its name.
Hit: 5 Stars
This compilation features crystal clear remastered sound with disc one covering 1975 through 1982 while disc two covers 1984 to 2002. Disc one is a little over 79 minutes long while Disc two is about 78 1/2 minutes long. thankfully, they packed the discs to the brim.
Disc one represents the band at their hard rock best. All of the expected tracks like Baracuda, Magic Man are here along with some album cuts as well.
Disc two shows the band going mainstream pop/rock in the 80's. Even though they weren't writing a lot of their hits at this point (the studio was having them do songs by outside songwriters for the most part), the music is still really good stuff. While it will always pale to their old stuff, this is still great pop/rock. Since the release goes chronological, the latter part of this CD sees the Wilson sisters getting back to more rocking and stripped down sound as opposed to the synthesizer drenched backdrops of their mid to late 80's stuff.
The is a terrific career overview. For the casual fan just wanting the hits along with some choice album cuts, this package is most excellent. The liner notes are also really informative giving a quick overview of the band's entire history.
Just an FYI, but since this came out in 2002, nothing from their 2004 studio album is represented here.