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Massive Attack - Collected - 21-Oct-09 10:31 AM
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, Ive realized it happens the only other album review Ive done on Discogs (and which I now find dated) is for Prodigys Best Of compilation. There is a close second to this musical preference, it is Massive Attack, but I dont know the latters discography with the same depth and I havent known them for as much time (so I cant 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 peoples reasons: its either for the energy or for the chilling power music can have. As I associate The Prodigy to whats 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 Massives music is the best, and this is because I (instinctively, probably) give more *value* to the "Im 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 Prodigys 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 its 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 arent 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 didnt fit too well for a mix with the more recent ones.
Also, maybe every Best Ofs goal should be to contain only good songs and no boring ones, and while I dont think Best Ofs 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 havent spent much time on), the DVD of promo videos (which, like the CD side, I didnt 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, heres 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 isnt the best, is that the accompanying DVD of this release will never be as good as The Prodigys Their Law DVD, which is UNBEATABLE. But this is just a detail, isnt it? ;-p

Prodigy, The - Their Law - The Singles 1990-2005 (Special Edition) - 19-Jun-06 05:37 AM
I simply could have said that this album is only worth buying for the bonus disc if youre already a Prodigy fan that has the previous albums. It is because, as a fact, the second disc is really a good disc to own as it features a full list of yet unreleased songs interesting enough to be gathered together. But its not only this. It is the album that shows all the great retrospective of the group and the best of their work on one simple CD. However, there remain a few details that, in my opinion, should have been changed. As example, "Hotride" is a single track that I deeply dislike, so its presence on the CD doesnt thrill me that much (happily, its the only one in that case). But, as the main deficiency, the CD is called "The Singles 1990-2005", but there isnt even the first single of all, which is "What Evil Lurks". We can even see a tag refering to it inside the booklet, how could have Liam Howlett dared forget to add this classic to the compilation? After all, none of this affect the fact that "Their Law" is still a great retrospective compilation of The Prodigy, and its name as also been well chosen to represent them. But, I think I cannot force you to get it, like I cannot force you to reach the nirvana... ;-p