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Review
- Seize The Day And Other Stories
(Carolyn
Arends)
For
a best-of album, which are usually quickly passed by,
Carolyn Arends' effort is really a good buy. Not only
collecting songs from all three of her albums, 5 live
tracks and 2 new tracks are included. The disc has 16
tracks total, which is quite a good collection.
If
you want to be introduced to Carolyn, this CD is a much
better buy than any of her previous albums. All the songs
tell which album they're from, so you can decide which
of her other albums you might like best (since they're
all quite different: 'Feel Free' took a pop-rock direction
after her debut 'I Can Hear You', and then 'This Much
I Understand' took a country direction). The best of Carolyn's
music is really well represented on this CD, and her take
on 'They'll Know We Are Christians' is original. Fans
will especially enjoy the live tracks, of which 'There
You Are' is a highlight.
The
packaging of this CD is nice, and it's marked 'Collector's
Edition' (although I'm not sure why). For each song in
the lyric booklet there are Carolyn's personal comments
about it. Except for the two new songs, there are no lyrics.
This greatly puzzles me about best-of albums, because
they are perfect to introduce an artist to a new listener
and it would be helpful to have lyrics. This may be part
of what leads people to think of best-of albums as simply
a way to try to get more money out of an artist, despite
any extras that may be put onto the CD. The only other
problem I have with this CD is that forsome reason, 'Sieze
the Day' is included twice, once the album version and
once live. This again fuels the idea that best-of albums
are just to make money. It would have been better to just
include the live version of the track and include another
compilation track.
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