Track Listing

1. Somewhere In My Heart
2. Oblivious
3. Good Morning Britain
4. Working In A Goldmine
5. How Men Are
6. Birth Of The True
7. Pillar To Post
8. Walk Out To Winter
9. All I Need Is Everything
10. Deep And Wide And Tall
11. Jump
12. Killermont Street
13. Crying Scene
14. Spanish Horses
15. Reason For Living

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8530 in Music
• Released on: 1999-07-26
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Great band, but they deserve a far better 'best of'.
Don't get me wrong, I think Aztec Camera (and also Roddy Frame's solo work) are wonderful. After hearing John Peel playing 'Pillar to Post' back in 1982 (I think) I bought anything of theirs I could find. High Land Hard Rain definitely ranks among the very greatest debut albums and few would deny that Roddy Frame never bettered it (personally, I blame Mark Knoppfler for his smothering production on the second album, 'Knife') - indeed, I would argue that High Land Hard Rain is much more deserving of the title "The Best of Aztec Camera" than this assortment is. This collection has one or two too many tracks from 'Love' , only a couple from 'Stray', just one from 'Dreamland' and nothing at all (!) from the underrated 'Frestonia'. Ideally, a new 'best of' would now include many tracks from Roddy Frame's excellent 'Surf' album.
However, track selection is not my real gripe here. What really chokes me is the version of Van Halen's 'Jump': I saw Aztec Camera live in London in 83/84 and Roddy finished with his totally over-the-top guitar-god version of Jump which ripped the proverbial out of the original. They had the good sense to record a similar version for the b-side of the 'All I need is everything' 12" single. Although I already owned all their other CDs I rushed to buy this album purely because I saw that it contained 'Jump'. I cannot exaggerate my disgust at finding that they have faded out the last half of the track... THE BEST BIT!!! Fortunately, I have since been able to source the glorious full version, but I still cannot bear to play this CD.
My advice: Buy Hard Land Hard Rain (and Surf). Borrow Frestonia, Dreamland, Stray, Love, North Star and (if you must) Knife to see which suits you. Then steal (or obtain by any method possible) the FULL version of Jump.

Deep & Wide & Tall - Not Big, but very Clever
It's getting on for 20 years now since Roddy Frame burst onto the scene with High Land, Hard Rain, a refreshing blend of poetry set to a jazzy latino-folksy soundtrack, full of angry young man nous and laden with punk attitude. The album (which includes Oblivious, Pillar to Post, Walk Out to Winter and We Could Send Letters) thrust Frame into that unenviable group of artists who would be destined to never repeat the brilliance of their explosive debut. But that does not detract from the fact that Frame went on to deliver a catalogue of subtle, consumately brilliant music.

This 'best of' collection reflects a changing style and gradual maturing: from the early angst, through the most perfectly constructed song-writing and production of 1987's 'Love', and into the 90s with 'Spanish Horses' (an homage to Barcelona and 'Guadi's soft confusion'). My only criticism would be that to fully reflect the progression of Roddy's musical style, the playlist should include at least another dozen songs, and a whole lot more from the excellent jazz-cool and Sakamoto-inspired Frestonia.

Solid round-up of Roddy Frame's best moments.
Rather like the work of Prefab Sprout, Aztec Camera's output is neither forward thinking nor particularly adventurous, just wide-eyed songs of love and other important things like that. Both bands are essentially also projects based around one artist; in Aztec Camera the main protagonist being Roddy Frame. Unlike Prefab Sprout though, Aztec Camera's albums have been patchy so it is welcome that a compilation exists such as this which cherry-picks from his career so far. From the early part of his career there are timeless, catchy gems such as 'Pillar To Post', 'Oblivious' and 'Walk Out To Winter' all written before he turned 20 and he would struggle to follow these up. Sensibly Frame decided to write more mature, reflective songs such as 'Somewhere In My Heart' and 'How Men Are'. 'Working In A Goldmine' is as good as any great white-soul single ever recorded whilst the doleful cover of Van Halen's 'Jump' is slowed down to the pace of an Elvis ballad and shows a wry sense of humour. Much of Frame's work sounds rather dull because of its unspectacular arrangements but thankfully this compilation is a more than adequate reminder that he could write genuinely affecting heartfelt songs.