THE COMPACT DISC ANTHOLOGY

"The Compact Disc Anthology" is a nice Deep Purple 2 CD set compilation, featuring most of the classics of this excellent band. The first 5 tracks are from the "Psychedelic Pop/Soft Rock" era, including songs like the cover "Hush", "Mandrake Root", and the instrumental "Wring that neck", with Nick Simper on bass and Rod Evans on vocals (the guitar doesn't stand out so much like on the upcoming albums). Some people say this is the most prog era of Deep Purple. Then go some classics of the classical formation of almost every album until Come Taste The Band, like "Black Night", "Child in time", "Fireball", a live version of "Strang Kind of Woman" with a lot of jamming (and Gillan's screams!!), obviously "Highway star" and a live (Made in Japan) version of "Smoke on the water". The following tracks are from the Coverdale/Hughes era, containing a really good extended version of "Burn", and three songs with Tommy Bolin on guitar like the well-known "You Keep On Moving".

One thing I don't like of this compilation is that does not resume all Deep Purple's career (and it's a CDs compilation) and there are some songs that shouldn't be there. I prefer the "30: Vary Best Of".

Overall, it's a good Boxset, if you don't want to get into DP, but, a I said before, YOU MUST HAVE "MACHINE HEAD" AND "IN ROCK" (If you don't have them yet...)