When this compilation came out in 2003, my friend Jo in Sheffield told me explicitly not to get her this for her birthday — because someone else was getting it for her (you won't remember, so I'll remind you: she had it in for M People for their copy of the Small Faces' Itchycoo Park). But I filed it away mentally as a something I might like for myself, at the right price.
It was after I got some HMV vouchers three years ago (see the full story) that I spotted it for eight quid or so, which seemed good value for 50 songs. That said — and this will shock Faces aficionados such as Jo and Guy and Annie's eleven-year-old son, Piers — there are only about five or ten songs that I really like. They're the poppy or trippy ones like Itchycoo Park, Here Comes the Nice, All or Nothing. The ones that are just a template for Paul Weller don't do much for me.
But that comment has to be put into the context of the fairly pitiful attention I've given to the album so far. I listened today and heard You Need Loving, which went on to be cannibalised by Led Zep into Whole Lotta Love. I never knew that before. I must be about the last to find out.
No, that's not good enough, is it? I handed back my homework to myself and said, "must try harder". So I listened again and read Paulo Hewitt's sleevenotes. Not that that was enough to absorb all the songs properly, but it gave me a better sense of perspective for future listening. The thing that impressed me above all else was that in under four years the Small Faces covered ground that would later be mined again by everyone from Deep Purple to Chas and Dave, from the first two Yes albums to Ian Dury, and from The Jam to Blur. And when it was all over, the members of the band were 21, 22, 23 and 24 respectively.
 MusicBrainz entry for disc 1, disc 2Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album |
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