ORIGINAL ALBUM CLASSICS

The perfect Soft Machine smorgasboard.

3,4,5,6,7........... Only numbers for some. But for Soft Machine fans, this is both five numbers between one to ten and five captivating Soft Machine albums. Albums that still draws us into the world of Hopper, Ratledge, Dean, Marshall and the other fine musicians which were a part of this machine on these albums. Thanx to PA and the new Soft Machine live albums, Soft Machine is getting more and more fans as times goes too. I see a lot of new reviews here by new members of PA. That's excellent news.

Sony Music has released some 3-5 CDs boxes under the name Original Album Classics. As the titles suggest; the boxes only includes the original albums and no extra stuff. There is no booklets or even any relevant info in these boxes. Just the CD and some artwork. Many bands/artists in the PA database has also got this treatment. These boxes has sold very well so far due to the price. My brand new Soft Machine box (released a couple of days ago) only cost me £ 14/ $ 20 / ? 20 and that is the same price as one or two original albums. I already have those albums as paid MP3 downloads, but I am not saying "no thanx" to physical samples of these albums to that price.

The box comes without booklets at all. Just the CDs in promo CDs boxes with only the artwork. That is fine for me because I, and everyone else, can get all info I/we need about the albums from the internet or even books. In my case, Graham Bennet's book on Soft Machine. I am not so sure if I need booklets at all thanx to ProgArchives and other information sources. So I have no hassle with this. I do like the saving of space this box is compared to five CDs with jewel cases and all that xtra space. That mean I can even bring this box into work and play Third and Fourth on the CD player there. I can also bring this box with my on travels on planes etc etc. In other words; the lack of booklets is OK for me, but be warned if you still like your booklets. I believe the lack of booklets is the way the music business is now heading due to the internet thingy.

Music wise, I have to refer you all to the respective reviews of the albums. With glee and open joy, I put Third in the CD tray on my CD player and gave Facelift an airing. The sound is excellent and this makes me believe this may be the remastered version of Third and the four other albums. Full marks for the sound......... and Facelift really rocks !!

The quality of the music is somewhere between three and five in my view. Four stars it is, then. I would give five star for the value of this box though. No booklets is no good, but use ProgArchives as the reference source if you need a booklet.

In short; if you are new to Soft Machine and want to explore this band more; buy this box. If you, as I did, only have paid MP3 files of these albums; buy this box. If you have all the albums on CD or LP from before; don't bother. If you are looking for a cheap fantastic Christmas present to someone you believe should explore the horizons more; buy this one, Al De Meola or the Mahavishnu Orchestra box. In short; this box is excellent value for money. Hence my four stars.

4 stars

Normally, I rate Columbia's Original Album Classics series very highly, since - provided you don't mind getting fairly basic quality paper sleeves for the discs and absolutely no liner notes or booklets - they're a great way of collecting a big chunk of a band's discography all at once, and often they include albums which are otherwise hard to find on CD. However, whilst I do think the Soft Machine release - covering all their albums from Third to Seven - is a good one, there's some caveats I'll thrown in.

First off - and to be fair, this isn't really Columbia's fault - the selection of albums isn't what it could be. Columbia, of course, have to work with the albums they actually own the rights to, but that's a shame in this case because it means that neither of the band's first two albums are present, and thus a whole phase of the band's musical development is essentially missed out. Furthermore, it includes the band's transitional fourth and fifth albums, and though I have warmed to these I still consider them to be a little bit of a misstep compared both to what came before and what came after. The lack of the widely-respected Bundles will be especially felt by fusion fans.

Secondly, the recent remaster of Third, when bought separately, includes the Live at the Proms 1970 performance as a bonus disc - which isn't presented here. Consequently, if you really like the Robert Wyatt era of the band and want the Live at the Proms disc, you probably want to buy Third separately - at which point the value of the back goes down sharply, since Third is easily the best album here.