ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS

I take it for granted that in V.A. compilations a lot of music gives nothing to me - even a few interesting new discoveries can motivate to borrow & listen these things. But this 3CD set is probably the most furiating prog compilation I've heard. Most of the music is new to me, and I presume it tries to cover lesser-known paths of '68-'74 - so what reasons to include TWO all-too-well-known ELP tracks and TWO Nice tracks also? ('America' and 'Karn Evil 9', jesus how I'm tired of them!) And does it have to be hits like 'Easy Livin' by Uriah Heep or 'Fire' by Arthur Brown which must be familiar to most listeners? These details are in disharmony with the possible idea of bringing unfamiliar stuff. And if these are included, why the majority of distinguished prog bands are totally missing, as well as dozens of worse-known but high-quality bands with which one could really talk about a PROG collection.

Really, I don't consider many here to have much of anything to do with the genre. More with early heavy rock or blues-rock. When listening, I had to skip most tracks within the first half minutes. And to irritate proggers like me even more, there's again TWO bluesy Fleetwood Macs, TWO [&*!#]ty Status Quo tracks, and TWO Atomic Roosters (it's prog ok, but to me the least enjoyable branch of it).

Now the good parts. Early rare Jethro Tull song 'Aeroplane' is a great choice. I appreciate the inclusion of Gryphon's fantastic Red Queen album, and a solo guitar rarity by teenager Mike Oldfield which dates from sixties, his Sallyangie era. And 'new' bands that I found interesting include Skin Alley (lovely instrumental featuring a flute), Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger, Wishful Thinking, Marsupilami and Fruupp. So, nothing so bad that there wasn't something good. Check out if you get a chance. The form of the package is handy (I hate big boxes) and the texts are very informative.

Unlike the previous progressive box-sets I reviewed (not the Nuggets compilations that were Garage rock though), this little "baby" is not based on a record label and this might just be its strength, but somehow it fails to capitalize on this strength (the multi-label freedom) to the fullest. Compared to the Vertigo, the island, the Decca-Deram and the Harvest box-set, this one starts in 67 to end relatively later. If you already own the other four, you will be likely to not need this one so much because there will be some overlapping, but this was probably already the case already with those sets and your albums collection. The box-set is named after The Nice's second album.

As I said above, the multi-label possibilities are not fully exploited, but for understandable royalty/author's rights reasons, some managers and record companies not always being philanthropic (to say the least ;-), anyway who needs Zep, Beatles and Purple tracks on such a box-set if it is going to raise the price by over 50%. Among the interest of this compilation are a few tracks that are borderline progressive inclusions, including B Auger & The Trinity, Humble Pie and Kinks and a few more. The object I believe followed by this to give us a good explanation on how mid-60's rock evolved into full-blown prog by the early 70's and that goal is fully achieved in these track selection, even if no-one will ever fully agree with the actual choices that were operated.

Among the notable tracks worthy of note to the collectors is a Sam Gopal track (Lemmy's very first group), Heavy Jelly,Fuschia, Skin Alley, Marsipulami just to name a few. But the pure progressive content of this compilation is certainly a more diluted one than all of the single label ones, but the enjoyment is the same: You can put those on when you have a party and no-one will be annoyed by the bombardment of a full album from say a rather touchy guests not liking your "weird" RIO tastes.

What one must realize is that all of these box-sets are only for the progheads being able to afford these rather non-essential (this is debatable, though) compilations or make the investment (this was the cheapest I paid for those box-sets) just for a few rare and not-easy-to-find tracks, however beautiful may they be. Over-all , I would tend to think this box-set is not as essential as the other single label ones.