Ostensibly a
collection of B-sides, it is in fact a treasure trove for fans of Lloyd Cole,
who never got around to buying the pricy CD singles. It’s a 4 CD box set with an entertaining
booklet, describing the background to all the songs.
Packages like
this are essentially for nerds. Who
already have all the albums. In the case
of Lloyd Cole, this is especially so, speaking proudly as one of the nerds. This set is neatly divided into different
phases of Cole’s solo career; One More Wine Glass (1989-91), Re-make/Re-model
(1992-93), Dangerous Music (1994-95) and Difficult Pieces (1996-2006). In truth, these descriptions overstate the
material somewhat, most of it fits comfortably into Lloyd Cole’s trademark sound,
wry observations over cleverly played guitars.
What is
evident here, is that the hitherto overlooked material here is mainly of very
high quality, indeed, exceeding many of his solo albums. The strongest material is mainly on the first
(One More Wine Glass) and third (Dangerous Music) discs, with the second disc
(Re-make/Re-model) containing some of the weakest, mirroring this period of his
solo career.
Tracks like
the almost-rocking pair of Blame Mary Jane and Weird On Me would have been
among the stronger tracks on any of his solo albums, and the same could be said
of the more introspective Missing and Rain On My Parade, the latter of which
sees him reach for his inner Blue Nile.
Less
successful are the cover versions, Lloyd Cole is one artist who really
shouldn’t attempt them, he tends to neuter the songs and add little to them
(Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel No 2, Bob Dylan’s Most of the Time and
especially Lou Reed’s Vicious, Lloyd’s treatment is anything but). He also dabbled in remixes, mainly on the
second disc, and these are best avoided.
At 59 tracks
there is much to enjoy here for fans of Lloyd Cole. The playing throughout is largely exquisite,
Cole has always surrounded himself with quality collaborators. But above all the songwriting is almost
uniformly consistent (with a few exceptions) throughout this collection).
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