COLLECTIONS

I can't remember if I have ever had lower expectations of an album I review (just for fun) in ProgArchives. This is a cheapie collection from the long-running Dutch rock band GOLDEN EARRING, and what's saddest, it contains only material from the first half of the 90's, from albums that have well below 3 stars average ratings here. I bet there won't be any prog flavour at all. I have never listened to any complete album from them and my knowledge is thin. Their hit 'Twilight Zone' is probably the the only song I've heard! Sometime in the early 2000's I learned that 1) this band is regarded to be prog related, and 2) the ex-SUPERSISTER frontman (and later a member in NITS, one of my biggest pop faves) Robert Jan Stips had a stay in Golden Earring -- but it was a brief one, in the mid-70's. And as for the prog relatedness, well, it seems to concern only a small part of their huge discography. Mostly they're described as hard rock and arena rock. Yep, sounds like that.

This CD features 12 songs, and if I'm not mistaken they're all from these albums: Bloody Buccaneers (1991), Face It (1994) and Love Sweat (1995). Most of the tracks are written by main vocalist Barry Hays and guitarist-vocalist George Kooymans. There are some covers such as Bob Dylan & The Band song 'This Wheel's on Fire', also known as a Julie Driscoll/ Brian Auger collaboration. GE's version has both a rootsy feel for the raspy vocals and pompousness for the hectic, ELO-reminding arrangement. 'When I Was Young' is written by Eric Burdon et al., supposedly an Animals song then. Works well. Hard rock isn't a close genre for me, but I sort of like, if only for a little bit, the catchy energy here. I can imagine a partying group of youngsters havin' a good time with this music... back in my youth in the late 80's. (Do young people listen to this kind of ballsy rock anymore? I doubt.)

In short, this is commercial-sounding hard rock / arena rock, but actually pretty OK as such. Comparable to FOREIGNER, with slightly rootsier flavour. The production is good, there's energy and guts and the instruments can be heard clearly. And there's notably less cheese than in the 80's hard rock averagely. But since we're prog-listeners instead of hardrockers, two stars is enough. On ground of this all-too narrow-minded compilation I wouldn't search further material from this band. If I could borrow their proggiest 70's material from library for instance, I'd be interested to check it out. But the 90's era is completely another case.