Massive Attack - Collected

With my present musical knowledge and tastes, which are certainly greater than the ones of yesterday but lower than the ones of tomorrow, I can honestly say this is the best 'Best Of' compilation I own and have heard so far. Let me tell you why:

First (on a more philosophical side), I must say that my favourite band is The Prodigy, and with (or without?) some coincidence or irony, I've realized it happens the only other album review I've done on Discogs (and which I now find dated) is for Prodigy's Best Of compilation. There is a close second to this musical preference, it is Massive Attack, but I don't know the latter's discography with the same depth and I haven't known them for as much time (so I can't compare them on the lasting appeal).
There are two main reasons why I listen to music, and I guess they might be common to many other people's reasons: it's either for the energy or for the chilling power music can have. As I associate The Prodigy to what's best out of the 'energic pole', I think you can already guess, I do the same for Massive Attack with the 'chilling pole'. Where it differs is, while I have my preference for Prodigy (I have seen them playing live but not MA), I think I find Massive's music is the best, and this is because I (instinctively, probably) give more *value* to the "I'm feeling like a lost fish in the sea"-attitude I find in their music (like in a lot of other good melodic music) than to the good old "fuck yeah! I feel alive"-attitude I find in Prodigy's music (and their goal was never to make deep music anyway).

Second (on a more technical side), this compilation has all it has to have. Without a doubt it's a Best Of compilation, and while the main CD features mainly songs from singles, it is a very good retrospective of what MA did best on each of their albums (including, for example, the likes of What Your Soul Sings and Future Proof, which aren't singles but which I think deserve damn-well their presence on the compilation). Another advandtage is the fact that I think the mix of older and more recent tracks is consistent, where with The Prodigy I think the old tracks didn't fit too well for a mix with the more recent ones.
Also, maybe every Best Of's goal should be to contain only good songs and no boring ones, and while I don't think Best Of's always achieve this, I think this one does. And finally, coming with the first CD there is a bonus CD of good previously-unreleased tracks (which I haven't spent much time on), the DVD of promo videos (which, like the CD side, I didn't spin too often yet), and a nice picture booklet. All of this is contained in one, fine, little package.

So that was why. As a conclusion, here's a little overture on these two things:
- There are so many many personal favourites on this compilation that it would be useless to name them: you just need to have a look at the tracklisting, most of it is made of my personal favourites. Something I will say, though, is that the compilation would be worth buying if the presence of Live With Me was its only appeal.
- One point on which this release isn't the best, is that the accompanying DVD of this release will never be as good as The Prodigy's Their Law DVD, which is UNBEATABLE. But this is just a detail, isn't it? ;-p

Best version of the Massive Attack's collected, in a deluxe digipack with a beautiful booklet that contains a litle of each massive's albuns art made by names like Nick Knight, also contain a full collection of videos more complete that Massive's eleven promos, in this are more 5 videos (special cases, butterfly caught, live with me, live with me - alternative version and false flags). The cd of b-sides is fantastic cos contain rare materials previously unreleased like the songs silent spring, black melt and the beautiful joy luck club. For all this things this colection are totally necessary for massive's fans! Enjoy!