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The Ultimate Hits
Garth Brooks
A CD Review |
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As I’m starting to get excited about seeing Garth Brooks
in concert on November 14th (my review of that
concert will probably posted over the weekend of the 17th),
I thought I would get a head start by getting Garth’s latest
CD, "The Ultimate Hits," so that I would be familiar with
the new songs, and I find myself, again, in a weird spot of
reviewing a greatest hits type collection (my last one was
of Matchbox Twenty’s "Exile on Mainstream"). For the
Matchbox Twenty collection I was duly impressed by their
ratio of "new songs" to "greatest hit songs"
was at a whopping
35-39% depending on the version you bought, and although
Garth’s "The Ultimate Hits" is at a ratio of about 12% (I’m
ignoring the two, blank tracks), but with the fact that if
you shop fast you can get 34 songs and a DVD filled with
over two hours of videos for under $15 bucks. Even then,
just for the four songs and DVD of videos, the $15 bucks is
well worth the cost of getting redundant copies of songs you
already own, and you know what, when you rip them to your iPod, now you’ve got a higher rate of getting some great
Garth Brook’s songs blasting through your shuffle play.
In any case, "The Ultimate Hits" spans all of Garth
Brook’s career, with the songs that were hits (duh?), and as
I took a listen I was amazed as I remembered every lyric,
even filling in parts from "live shows" like "God bless
Chris LeDoux!", and remembered how a lot of Garth’s songs
brought back tons of memories through a lot of years. And
those were just the old songs! I could go through the entire
track listing, but why? Pretty much if the song was any kind
of radio hit for Garth, well, it’s on the two audio CD’s
included with this collection. I was a little more
interested in the four new songs, or I suppose I should say
three new songs and a bonus track (I still never really
understood the bonus track thing, especially with the two
"blank" tracks before, and in this case the bonus song is
"Leave A Light On"), and I have to say that the DVD is
really what sold me on the new songs.
The reason I say that the DVD sold me on the new songs is
that, like most CD’s, I listen to them in the background,
and as the new songs came around I was sort of like "I guess
that’s okay?" and then the next hit song would play, and I
would sing along while I was doing things. Then, as
much as I was indifferent to the DVD, I popped it in my player,
and I quickly realized that I’ll now have to do a review of it
separately (God, that video of "Much Too Young…" brought
back some wacky memories), but as I scanned through the
videos I eventually got to the video for "More Than a
Memory," and suddenly, like most Garth songs, the song
finally hit home. I will say I’m not a huge fan of the duet
with Huey Lewis covering "Workin’ For A Livin’, although
that might go back to some tortured days in college when one
of my nicknames was "Huey Lewis Lips," but "Midnight Sun"
got me right back to knowing Garth can be fun, and how fun
would it actually be to see Garth and the boys doing a
concert in a bar?
But the new, or rather bonus song, that hit me first was
"Leave A Light On," sans video, (and there isn’t one on the
DVD), because it seems to touch on how Garth is always able
to convey emotions, how a song can build to a crescendo,
keeping you with it until the end.
If you are a huge Garth Brook’s fan you probably own 30
of the songs on "The Ultimate Hits," and you probably have
copies, or bootlegs, of some of the videos on the included
DVD, but as Garth has always been about his fans, for the
price, this two audio disc with some new stuff and a bonus
DVD is way worth the price. I now have three new Garth songs
I really like in my music library, and fine, I’ll add the
Huey Lewis cover (even if I still have Huey’s lips), so I’ll
be giving Garth Brook’s "The Ultimate Hits" a 99% on the
Entertainment Ave! Listenability Scale. He loses 1% because
my ultimate Garth hit is "The Red Strokes." Sometimes I’m
petty like that for a CD review. Hey, at least he also
includes the "Dr. Pepper Commercial" song! Ah, screw it,
100%. I realized I still love Garth songs, again, even if my
"Ultimate" hits aren’t really on this CD.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!!
L8R!!! |
