ON THE OTHER SIDE

This is actually an okay collection if you are a hardcore Kansas fan. If you are not, the track selection won't make any sense at all. First time I saw this I thought it was supposed to be a collection of single B-sides.

Turns out that's incorrect. Some of these might have actually been B-sides, but this is simply the Sony reissue of a 1992 BMG Kansas compilation called "Carry On". Same tracks, different cover art. That's about it. If you Google the "Carry On" album cover you'll see why Sony decided to reissue this. The original cover doesn't use the familiar band logo, and has a really crappy promo photo of the band superimposed over a map of the American midwest with the album title written in red lipstick. Really cheap- looking. I guess Sony figured when they started remastering all the band's classics and after the tastefully done Sail On anthology, that they should spruce up the packaging on this one too.

I said up front that non-fans wouldn't understand the song selection here. Well I'm a hardcore Kansas fanboy, and I don't really understand it either. Aside from Best of Kansas, this is the only way to get a collection of Kansas songs in their original studio versions without buying one of the many multi-disc sets, but I fail to really get the logical connection between most of these songs.

Just for the record, the only song here that doesn't appear on any other compilation is "Two Cents Worth" from Masque. "Carry on Wayward Son", "People of the South Wind", "Can I Tell You", "The Wall", and "Dust in the Wind" were all released as singles, and are also included on just about every other Kansas collection on the market.

Besides "Can I Tell You" from their debut, all these songs are from Masque, Leftoverture, Point of Know Return, and Monolith in the 1975-1979 timeframe. The other songs are "What's on My Mind", "Child of Innocence", "It Takes a Woman's Love (To Make a Man)", and "On the Other Side". The cover photo is a promo from the same photo session as the one that yielded the photo on the back cover of the band's 1974 debut album.

So in summary - nothing here you wouldn't get with any of the other Kansas boxed-sets except for "Two Cents Worth". If you have the 1992 Kansas collection called "Carry On", you have this same album. Otherwise, the songs are all good, but the collection doesn't make a lot of sense. I'll give the songs 3.5 stars, but the collection two stars.

peace

This is one of those cut-priced compilations and you really don't need me for this, do you? I mean, you know the drill by now: ten tracks, some (but not all) of the big hits and the usual baffling selections. I'd point you toward The Best of Kansas, but that kind of sucked too. Not that the songs on either compilation are to blame. In this case, "Child of Innocence" and "What's On My Mind" are wonderful surprise substitutions. But is a single-disc Kansas compilation so daunting after all? The trouble may be that Kansas had two phases: the early prog years and the arena rock years. You know which side I fall on, and On The Other Side at least falls into my favor. Nothing on here is later than Monolith, which is where I usually cut the cord myself. But I keep coming back to that cut-priced mentality and the Skaroojiz at Sony/BMG. They even have the audacity to thank Phil Ehart for "his assistance in this project and making it possible." What project? It's a budget compilation for crying out loud; the interior CD cover spread is completely blank. However, among budget-price compilations, this actually ends up on the plus side. Usually these things include latter-day hits or live versions, but On The Other Side contains classic-period Kansas: "Can I Tell You" from their first album, three tracks from Masques, three from Leftoverture. You could do worse for seven dollars. You could also do better by picking up a used copy of Leftoverture or Point of Know Return. But as a sampler, I actually prefer this to The Best of Kansas (the 10-track original version).

Given the atrocious original cover art for this compilation, it's no wonder the record label decided to change it. The track selection is a queer one, though, with the two biggest hits naturally included, but most everything else are songs that even some casual Kansas fans might not recognize. Those who know and love Kansas can attest that that can be a good thing and a bad thing. In this case, it's decidedly both. Included are "On the Other Side," "Can I Tell You," and "What's on My Mind," three excellent short tracks. Then there's "It Takes a Woman's Love (to Make a Man)" and "Two Cent Worth," two songs from the band's third album which are really the worst of the bunch. With the exception of "Child of Innocence" and "Dust in the Wind," all of these songs are chronologically the first of their respective albums- a curious and rather haphazard choice. The glorious second album is passed over entirely, and none of Kerry Livgren's greatest masterpieces are included. I can't say I would recommend this compilation to anyone, really, even if the songs are all generally good, primarily because it would only serve to cement the commonly-asserted canard that Kansas is merely an arena rock band playing nothing more intricate than Styx or Journey.