 Nick Drake I'd be curious to see how well this disc is selling now that "Pink Moon" has been used in that car commercial. Hopefully really well – I'm not one of those slimos who want to keep all the good things hidden. Besides, hipsters always think they're the only ones into artists like Nick Drake. Here's a shocker: all you hipsters are alike, and there's thousands of you. Wait a minute, I not only just insulted the majority of my audience, but I also used a piece of Phantom Menace vocabulary a few lines back. I may need a "vacation" like my editors keep suggesting. Oh, who are we kidding, obviously my stuff does not get edited, and the only thing anyone suggests for me to take is an overdose of antidepressants. And there's no better disc to take an overdose of antidepressants to than this one. Just ask Nick Drake, I'm pretty sure that's how it went for him. Listening to his incredibly haunting voice, with the cool, mournful acoustic guitar plucking out jazzy chords, the occasional bed of strings, a bit of piano, you are sucked into his fragile, very personal and very beautiful musical world. Way To Blue is the "greatest hits" for a quite "hit"-less artist. At the risk of sounding like a heretic, I might even argue that it's the best Drake disc on the market. Collecting the best moments from his three albums (Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, and Pink Moon) plus the posthumous rarities collection Time of No Reply, this is a clear choice for your first Nick Drake disc. The individual albums are greater, but considerably more subtle, pleasures. I love Pink Moon until it hurts, but I'd never argue that it's immediately accessible. Way to Blue does such a good job of presenting Nick Drake as a captivating artist that he almost comes off as a James Taylor-type thing. I didn't mean to imply that James Taylor is captivating, but rather that Nick Drake has never sounded so solid. The disc moves tastefully through Drake's best songs, pacing them well and unfolding the Nick Drake story in a somewhat prettified but beguilingly attractive way. It's the Nick Drake album that most people would want, and the one that fans secretly look at in the CD shop and wish they would buy. I have the Fruit Tree box set which has the four albums (so this CD is 100% redundant for me), but I love to borrow this CD or put it on at friends' houses whenever the situation arises. It's the Nick Drake "pop" album. Yeah, yeah "best ofs are for sissies." Well, so are luxurious bubble baths with scented candles and Najee on the stereo, and we all do that! Um, right? Me either. Anyway, there's little quibbling to be done regarding the track selection: "Cello Song," "Time Has Told Me," "Pink Moon," "Which Will," "River Man," "Way to Blue," "Fruit Tree," "Time of No Reply" the two "Hazey Janes," "Things Behind the Sun" … sixteen amazing tracks in total. The only one I'd have loved that they missed is "Fly" off Time of No Reply, but chances are you'll be seeking out the original albums (or the box set) after getting hooked on this disc. It's good of Hannibal to bring a compilation like this out so that people won't be so daunted by the uncharted waters of his albums. Fans of Belle & Sebastian will start to realize where all that good stuff came from, and people who dive in after seeing that car commercial are in for the genuine treat of discovering Nick Drake – I wish I could have that great pleasure again. It takes a leap to get into Nick's world, but the treasures you will find there are worth it … just like in The Beach. Oh, but minus all the stuff that happened later in The Beach. Oh, by the way, I've never seen The Beach.
Review by Ol' Chinky |