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THE EMI SINGLES COLLECTION

Marillion

Neo-Prog


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Marillion The EMI Singles Collection album cover
3.18 | 48 ratings | 7 reviews | 21% 5 stars

Good, but non-essential

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DVD/Video, released in 2002

Songs / Tracks Listing

FISH era:
1. Market Sguare Heroes (1982)
2. He Knows You Know (1983)
3. Garden Party (1983)
4. Assassing (1984)
5. Kayleigh (1985)
6. Lady Nina (1985)
7. Lavender (1985)
8. Heart Of Lothian (1985)
9. Incommunicado (1987)
10. Sugar Mice (1987)
11. Warm Wet Circles (1987)

HOGARTH era:
12. Hooks In You (1989)
13. Uninvited Guest (1989)
14. Easter (1990)
15. Cover My Eyes (Pain And Heaven) (1991)
16. No One Can (1991)
17. Dry Land (1991)
18. Sympathy (1992)
19. The Great Escape (1994)
20. Hollow Man (1994)
21. Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury (1994)
22. Beautiful (1995)

Total Time: 89:47

Line-up / Musicians

- Mark Kelly / keyboards
- Steve Rothery / guitars
- Pete Trewavas / bass
- Ian Mosley / drums
- Mick Pointer / drums (1, 2)
- Andy Ward / drums (3)
- Fish / vocals (tracks 1 - 11)
- Steve Hogarth / vocals (tracks 12 - 22)

Releases information

DVD EMI 07243 5 39508 9 7 (2002)

Thanks to Gatot for the addition
and to Tarcisio Moura for the last updates
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MARILLION The EMI Singles Collection ratings distribution


3.18
(48 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(21%)
21%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(29%)
29%
Good, but non-essential (42%)
42%
Collectors/fans only (6%)
6%
Poor. Only for completionists (2%)
2%

MARILLION The EMI Singles Collection reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Gatot
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars Music is a contagious disease. Last night, I met a friend of mine whom I knew approx ten years ago when both of us worked for one of the world's big six consulting firms in which by that time I promoted the music of Genesis, Marillion, Yes, etc. to my colleague consultants, especially those who were in one project with me and stationed at client's premise. Some oh 'em liked it (even loved it) and some of 'em hated it and some of 'em were indifference. It's a normal outcome, isn't it? Back to my meeting last night, "she" (ehm, prog does good to woman too, it's not a men's world man .!!) told me an amazing story about her experience with Marillion. When her mind was stumbled couple weeks ago because she was about to formulate a robust recommendation for a Client, she suddenly remembered "Incomunicado" of Marillion's Clutching At Straws album. She inserted the CD at her laptop and plugged the earphone and listening to Incommunicado while working. What happened after that? Her mind and her thoughts flew smoothly and she had successfully crafted a robust recommendation that she finally put nicely at the final report. WOW! What a truly prog experience man .!!! Prog rules the world!!!! Am amazed on how prog can help human being excels! Yeah man . music is emotion!

Music is a contagious disease. When I reached home - being amazed by the story that my friend told me - I suddenly remembered that I have a DVD collection of Marillion that I have rarely watched titled "The EMI Singles Collection" where Incomunicado is also featured. Quite honest, I don't enjoy video clips, actually. Most of my DVD or laser disc collections are live performance because I really love watching rock concert. But for Marillion? Why not! It's a kind of documentary for me.

Am sure that most of you who live not in the rest of the world country have been familiar with the footages featured in this DVD as it was played on MTV and other TV- channels. For me, I never seen any of them before I owned this DVD and I was surprised that a prog band like Marillion had managed to record no 22 different videos for EMI alone. The DVD offers a balanced set whereby those 22 clips were divided over both Marillion eras: eleven clips with Fish and an equal amount for Marillion Steve Hogarth. My chief reason to purchase was actually for the first eleven clips.

The DVD opens with "Market Square Heroes" which was shot in front of a live audience who really applaud the show, whilst Fish sings dynamically with this rocking tune. "He Knows You Know" sees Fish in his act as an actor, playing a role as a man with drugs problem. "Garden Party" does not really favor me as the clips do not support the beauty of the music. It' funny for me as the band members dressed as young rascals. Ex-Camel drummer Andy Ward was shot here, who was at the time Marillion's drummer for a short period.

"Kayleigh" - being a truly pop gem - is and will always remain the band's well known song ever. Whenever I asked someone about his knowledge abiut the group named after Marillion, I always sing this song. And they then realize that it was by Marillion. The media still regard "Kayleigh" as being Marillion's best ever composition. The film that supports Kayleigh is a cheap one but I like that it featured Robert Mead, the child that appeared in Lavender single. Really nice. A funny thing happens for "Incommunicado," where the band members are dressed as scruffy homeless beggars. The video also shows the band filmed at The Marquee. The final video featuring Fish is to promote "Warm Wet Circles." Which was taken from the "Live from Loreley" video.

The Hogarth part starts with "Hooks In You." Which was filmed in front of an enthusiastic crowd. This upbeat tempo track demonstrates that Marillion without Fish is still good (even though I personally at the time was disappointed with Fish departure from the band). In "Uninvited Guest" Hogarth sings seated in a couch hanging from the ceiling. The other members of the band sit around a suspended table as if it was a flying image of the last supper. "Easter" was shot on location with the band setting out for the coast. The band also covers a reprise of the Rare Bird classic "Sympathy" - a very good one. In 1994 the band released three videos to promote "Hollow Man," "Alone Again In The Lap Of Luxury" and "The Great Escape." These three serve as a trilogy.

Overall, you will have a 22 video clips that represent the band's years with EMI between 1982 - 1995. This video will be a good introductory tool for those who have not known the band. For those who have loved the band either during Fish or Hogarths era or both eras will find this as a good documentary. Keep on proggin' ..!

Progressively yours,

GW

Review by Cygnus X-2
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
3 stars The 80s was not a very good decade for music videos. Most of the time, they were over the top, terribly ridiculous, and they made the bands look completely different than they really did and threw the entire of the song itself off. This can be attributed here to Marillion, a group that was never destined to make a truly great music video. Despite that, there are a few interesting videos here to help bring up the overall quality to the completely ridiculous and cheesy videos. This collection, comprising of all of the Fish era videos and the Hogarth videos until Beautiful, has a certain nostalgic feel to it as you see Marillion try to create something that a station like MTV would play... to no avail?

Of the Fish videos, Garden Party, Heart of Lothian, and Incommunicado provide moments of comedy and catch the band in silly situations. The best of these three is Heart of Lothian, which contains a rapid sequence of seamingly slapstick events (one of which is a car driving through a shop window). Sugar Mice is another good video with some definite melancholic moments throughout (special mention goes to the part where the band comes through the bar counter for Rothery's solo). Assassing, He Knows You Know, Kayleigh, and Lavender are some of the most painful things to watch, in my opinion, but not in a bad sense, more like in a funny way. Lady Nina, Market Square Heroes, and Warm Wet Circles are pretty average videos (with Warm Wet Circles being the video for the song from the Live at Loreley release), nothing terribly special or noteworthy goes along with these ones.

Of the Hogarth videos, the best ones are probably The Great Escape, Easter, and The Uninvited Guest (not for the song itself, but for the creativity of the video). The rest are pretty run of the mill videos (although the Brave songs are all pretty intense videos). Beautiful gets a special mention for it's very... how do you say... suggestive content (not in a bad sense at all, for your information), let's say you could get the wrong idea from this video. Another note goes to Hooks in You, the first Hogarth video and the song that really showed that Marillion were back and with a bang... this video makes it look as if Marillion were some late 80s Hair Metal band because it follows the formula of a hair metal video (mainly in that the video is mostly the band playing in front of a crowd).

In the end, the Marillion video collection isn't for everyone. It certainly is for the die-hard Marillion fans and those who like watching videos so cringeworthy they could make you laugh. One of the fun features in the random video option that plays any of the 22 videos in any sequence (so you don't have to to watch all the Fish videos and then all the Hogarth ones). In any sense, it's a fun video, but I can't really recommend it to anyone but Marillion fans. And because of that, I can't rate it terribly high. Still, it's a very complete and harmless collection of videos from a group that never really could make a truly spectacular music video.

Review by Heptade
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars I'm not a fan of videos in general...I can probably count the great ones I've seen on two hands over the last 20 years or so. Having said that, this collection shows that Marillion was not served by that medium at all. Most of these videos look cheap and very cheezy. The Fish-era ones usually feature the great man, dressed in some rather weird outfits, acting out various depressing scenes from the songs, mixed with band footage. That's where his devilish charisma shines through, although the serious, serious mullets the band usually sport detract a lot from the cool! These videos are pretty good 80s fromage fun, though, even if they are unimaginative. The H-era videos, paralleling the band's search to update their sound to remain cool, try pretty hard to be artistic, although Hogarth comes across as pretty goofy in most of them, trying pretty hard to be the sexy frontman. Mark Kelly even sports a grungy plaid shirt in one video! The mullets are gone, heads are shaved, certain band members are little (or a lot) heavier...yeah, videos weren't good for this band at all! The extracts from the Brave film are the best bits, where more artistic care was taken and the budget must have been considerably higher. Nonetheless, there isn't a single video on here that I would consider a piece of art and would watch again, were it not for the comedy value of those 80s videos. I have a feeling that Marillion themselves would probably not disagree. Two stars for artistic content, one more for the mullets! This reasonably priced dvd does work well also as a greatest hits package to put on loud and leave the room without watching the visuals.
Review by ZowieZiggy
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Another attempt to mix the story of these two bands.

Some of the clips are worthwile looking at especially "He Knows, Yo Know" for its scary and weird mood (Fish being most of the time prisoner in a small cell and wearing a strait jacket, "Garden Party" is quite funny, with the five Marillion guys being featured as schoolboys making lots of jokes to the guests of a "Garden Party". But we won't get the usual "I' m fuc.ing" here. The party ending in a complete chaos.

"Kayleigh" is also interesting and emotional (since it is a personal moment of Fish's life). We'll also see the boy featured on the sleeve of "Misplaced" (even miming the lyrics at times).

During "Incommunicado", we'll get some Marquee footage. Some nostalgia here.

All these Marillion songs belong of course to their most commercial (pop / prog) side as it is a collection of singles. We'll get here and there some good ideas and nice effects; but nothing really great I must say. "Sugar Mice" is also very melancholic, featuring a desperate Fish hanging in a bar (a bit drunk) and looking at some photographs of his wedding and children. This is for the first part. The Marillion one.

Now, part two. Marillion Mark II, the other band featured on this video. The tone is completely different of course. Although "Hooks" is a good rock song, I have immediately the impression that Hogarth doesn't have a voice strong enough to perform these. He has to be confined in the mellow repertoire which, at times, really bores me.

The scenario for "Uninvited" is good and creative but I can still hardly believe the choice of the band to replace Fish. And I will never understand it. The more video footage I see, the more I am comfirmed in my opinion.

After "Sympathy" which is one of the best moments of the second band (but it is a cover) the last videos are really dull. Except "Beautiful" which brings a lot of nice and emotional images.

Even if the songs of the genuine Marillion featured here are not the best of their repertoire, they indicate that their frontman was brilliant and to a certain extent, unique. Needless to say that with Mark II, I do not have the same feeling.

This is for die-hard fans. Two stars.

Review by Matti
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Now owning something like 15 music DVD's, this one is actually among the most frequently viewed. (Perhaps Pink Floyd's P.U.L.S.E. or Blackmore's Night double-DVD have been more times in my player since I have owned them longer and they have longer contents, but speaking of MUSIC VIDEOS, I certainly have enjoyed this one more than the DVD's by David Bowie or Peter Gabriel, not to mention the others I have.)

Fish-era Marillion covers quite exactly 50% of this 90-minute set. Of course we are dealing with a lot of nostalgia here, but some of the videos are relly quite good too. 'He Knows You Know' is Marillion's cousin to Bowie's 'Ashes To Ashes' (junkies, creeping madness, etc) and the cinematic video is well directed. 'Garden Party' is an amusing, tongue-in-cheek picture of an upper class garden party where the band members, acting as childish boys, go playing their little tricks. 'Kayleigh' deals melancholically with the man (Fish) and the woman after their relationship is over. The video features also the uniformed boy from the Misplaced Childhood album cover. One of the weakest videos is 'Heart of Lothian' in which Fish wanders thru the city and arrives late into the gig; the video attempts to be humorous and has no logical connection to the song itself. 'Sugar Mice' is one of the best videos: Fish plays very heartachingly the shabby divorced man lulling in self pity. 'Warm Wet Circles' video is based on Marillion's concert on Loreley.

The Hogarth-era is no (well, not much...) weaker in terms of music videos. The tracks of course include some of the band's most commercial and weakest pop songs such as 'Cover My Eyes' and 'No One Can'. 'Easter' is a nice one, except for the way Hogarth gestures sentimentally. The videos around those two first Fishless albums are in general quite polished and tidy but somehow too middle-of-the-road stuff. OK, the doppelgänger in 'Uninvited Guest' is a good idea but I dislike the song too much.

When I bought this DVD, I hesitated between this and the "Brave" movie. Of course I could have bought them both, but maybe I still can buy the latter one. I read some negative-ish reviews of the Brave film here in PA, but att least the three songs included in this compilation are among the highlights, both visually and musically (Brave has been one of my favourite albums years back). 'The Great Escape' is deeply moving! The first time I watched it I had to watch it again immediately. BTW the girl in the head role looked familiar but the googling proved she's almost unknown. However she acts very well here, maybe in the whole Brave movie too... All in all, very recommendable DVD to anyone who likes Marillion even for a little.

Review by Tarcisio Moura
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars ItĀ“s funny thinking about it now, but Marillion was a band quite ahead of its time, in prog terms at least. They were quickly to realise how important the music video was in the early 80Ā“s: a new and powerful medium to get a whole new audience. While most prog bands simply shield away from videos, Marillion embraced them. The group already had a fanatical (albeit small) following at the time of their recording contract with EMI, mostly due to their constant gigging around the UK. So did other bands prog bands at the time (IQ, Twelfth Night, etc). However, Marillion was one of the very first prog band of their generation - if not THE first - to fully use the videos to promote their singles. And they did it very well, by the way. Fish proved to be a quite strong actor on those videos, which came across as not a real surprise for anyone who had witnessed his interpretations on stage with the group. Although not too many peple realize that, those videos were a major help to boost their way to become progĀ“s # 1 group of that decade. A trait the band kept on doing for some time after Fish quit and Steve Hoggarth came in as the new singer.

Now, I canĀ“t say IĀ“m a fan of music video, far from it. I much rather watch bands play live than mimicking in front of a camera. Besides, with a few exceptions, most videos are boring or, often, ridiculous. Few Marillion videos ever appeared on brazilian TV (and only the most obvious ones). So I was not exactly thrilled when I saw this DVD on a music store. I donĀ“t quite remember why I bought it. Probably because I wanted to see Kayleigh again and it was cheap. But when I put it on I was quite pleased with what I saw. it is ok that some of the stuff is quite dated (image-wise, that is), a lot of the songs are edited and obviously there are two bands on this DVD: the new (or neo if you like) symphonic prog of Fish-era Marillion and the alternative/pop ditties of the group after Hoggarth took over vocal duties (it was not his fault, though. The band was already writing different styled music by the time Fish left. He claims this to be one fo the reasons why he went solo). Which may bring some mixed feelings. Early videos were obviously more primitive, but the music is far superior. Not that the Hoggarth era stuff is bad, it is not. But it is also way different!

Of the first half of the DVD, it is nice to see those hard-to-find clips of Market Square Heroes or He Knows, You Know (excellent Fish work on the latter). Keyleigh may be a bit overplayed through the years, but it is still a great song and the video is a classic. The funny Garden Party has the dubious honor of being the only existing recording - and just a visually recording - of ex Camel drummer Andy Ward with the band (his drinking problem prevented him from staying longer). Warm Wet Circles is the sole segment that is really played live (it was latter released as part of the Live From Loreley DVD).

Post Fish videos are more visually sophisticated, if not that great musically. The band was trying to conquer the american market in the late 80Ā“s/early 90Ā“s, so obviously they concentraded on their most popish stuff. Powerful tunes like SeasonĀ“s End, Splintering Heart or The Space never got the exposure they deserved. However, songs like The Uninvited Guest, Easter and Beautiful are quite good prog/pop effords. And all the videos are usually better than anything that was being shown on MTV then anyway.

Conclusion: a surprisingly good collection of videos, even if some of MarillionĀ“s most outstanding stuff (either with or without Fish) is not represented here. I found myself watching this DVD far more times than I initially thought I would. You know why? Because this band is great! And they knew how to make terrific videos. Something a lot of bands, prog or otherwise, did not have a clue of how to.

Rating: 4 stars.

Latest members reviews

1 stars It's another piece from Marillion. Something a bit different, I think. Yes, it's a collection of their video clips both from Fish era and Hogarth era. I've watched many video clips from many prog bands but I think Marillion is one of the best videomaker in the progressive world. So ... (read more)

Report this review (#76986) | Posted by Fernandi | Wednesday, May 3, 2006 | Review Permanlink

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