Guess Who - Ultimate Collection (56 tracks) +Album Reviews

Whets the appetite

David S. Brumley | San Diego, CA USA | 08/16/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been a Guess Who fan since the beginning, and I've followed them through all their changes. The best music the band made was in obscure albums like Artificial Paradise and #10. I treasure these albums and still drag out old vinyl to hear them, despite my huge collection of modern CDs. A collection of singles like this only highlights their popular music, which hardly does them justice. But this set is better than no set at all! When I say good solid rock and roll, I mean memorable lyrics, catchy melodies, creative musical dynamics, complex textures, better-than-professional quality instrumentals, and fabulous vocals and vocal harmonies. The Guess Who delivers on all these counts. Kurt Winter was one of the great unsung heroes of rock and roll. Don't miss this collection, but hold your breath and hope for CD releases of all the Guess Who's really memorable music!"

Decent, but...

David S. Brumley | 03/27/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"For fans of The Guess Who, their current CD catalog is disappointing, particularly when some of their best music (with Kurt Winter) is unavailable. Which is one of the problems I have with this collection. The same songs that you can find on most of the other Guess Who collections are found here--not a lot of hard to find material. I especially miss songs from "Rockin'" and "So Long Bannatyne", such as "Smoke Big Factory", "She Might Have Been A Nice Girl", "One Man Army", "Back To The City" and "Nashville Sneakers". Great tunes left off this collection in favor of weaker tunes like "Arrivederci Girl", "Orly", "One Divided" and "Truckin' off Across the Sky". Naturally the choices for collections are subjective, but even "Albert Flasher" was never one of my favorites, and you'll find it on every Guess Who "Best Of...". Let's hope that we can get those missing tracks somewhere soon...!"

Great Collection with OVERBLOWN BASS !!!

Lance Lazewski | Buffalo, New York | 09/10/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As usual, being an audiophile nut & a big Guess Who / Burton Cummings fan, my review of this fine collection of songs isn't about the material but the sound. As with some the other reviews, I wish RCA/BMG would stop messing around with releasing all kinds of so called "greatest hits" packages (all with the same songs) & release all of the RCA collection of Guess Who albums in the United States. A couple of years ago, some of the less comercially successful but far superior albums were released in Canada on these "2 for 1" CD's with absolutly horrible sound. I bought them all & in less than a week sold them all on ebay !! (I much rather listen to the vinyl than these nasty sounding cds) Anyway, this collection isn't as bad as those from a sound standpoint, the highs are nice & clear but the collection was equalized with way too much low end, especially at around the 40 hz level. You may not notice this as much on a boom box but if you have good equipment with a subwoofer, the bass is way too overpowering on just about all the songs. What you might do to overcome this is to record the collection through an equalizer & onto a home audio CD-R. This way you can trim back on the lows around 30 to 40 hz & end up with a decent sounding recording."

How NOT To Do A Boxed Set!

John J. Wood (jwood_jw@yahoo.com) | Plainville, MA | 10/16/1998

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a disappointing review for me to write, as The Guess Who were the very first artist I listened to growing up, starting from the Canned Wheat days up to their '76 demise. While I'm happy to see the Canadian greats get their due on a box set, the results of the product itself are a general disappointment.First, the sound quality varies far too much. Most of the American Woman songs sounded like they were remixed layer by layer, resulting on unnecessary & very noticeable tape hiss. The CD version of the American Woman album may be duller in dynamics, but it's more listenable because the hiss is minimized in comparison. In addition, a few songs were altered: For example, the last 20 seconds are missing from "Share The Land". Several of the mixes also miss the mark, particularly in the softer passages (like the ending of "Sour Suite"), resulting in a messy, noisy tone. Finally, as the Guess Who underwent various personnel changes, the quality of their music started to deteriorate by the mid-70s, particularly the Flavours and Power In The Music periods. Some of the songs are hit-and-miss as a result: Whereas you rediscover gems like "Lie Down" and "Broken", you also wince through overblown excesses like the cheesy "Dreams" and lame "Women".The liner notes are also useless, more of an afterthought than informative. Information regarding the recording sessions would have been nice, along with personnel-per-track and any unusual stories that captivate the fan. Even the discography is woefully inaccurate, failing to acknowledge the band's total body of work (even if more than half of it is out of print). While John Einarson's book, "American Woman: The Story Of The Guess Who" serves its purpose, most box sets these days are graced with lavish booklets with great details (e.g., King Crimson's "The Great Deceiver").Of course, it's better for most of these songs to have seen the light of day, but just three outtakes is all RCA/BMG could have come up with?For the record, the best Guess Who product out there right now is an out-of-print 1994 remaster of Share The Land, which shines with clean sound and a detailed, rich mix. Once you hear that, then you will have an idea of how The Ultimate Collection should have been handled."

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