Like many groups of long vintage and considerable commercial success, Heart has had their hits collected roughly as many times as Michael Jackson has had his nose done.\u00a0 Know this, though — for the fan of the original 1970s incarnation of the band (read: me), the 1998 collection from Epic\/Legacy is the best option out there.<\/p>\n
Still, putting this disc in for the first time is bound to be a strange experience for a fan like me who\u2019s followed the band off and on for 30 years.\u00a0 The starting point feels pretty obvious when your first hit — the heavy, churning \u201cMagic Man\u201d — was also the first song on side one of your debut album.\u00a0 Right?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Wrong.\u00a0 Because this particular greatest hits album starts off with the at-the-time new bonus track \u201cStrong, Strong Wind,\u201d a number that sounds like a Diane Warren adult contemporary ballad.\u00a0 Whatever you want to say about Warren\u2019s spectacular commercial success, Heart should not be singing anything that even resembles a Diane Warren song.\u00a0 Heart is a rock and roll band, and this cut sounds like lead voice Ann Wilson auditioning to take over Celine Dion\u2019s headlining slot on the Vegas Strip.<\/p>\n
And then we\u2019re back — back where we belong, back where it all began for Heart.<\/p>\n
There is something positively tribal about the pulsing beat that lies coiled at the core of \u201cMagic Man\u201d; it sounds more like jungle love than \u201cJungle Love\u201d does.\u00a0 \u201cCrazy On You,\u201d though, is where Ann, sister Nancy Wilson and the rest of Heart made their first real statement of musical identity, as the soft\/heavy yin\/yang female-Zeppelin vibe comes through crystal clear as a dynamite acoustic intro leads into a powerhouse electric riff that drives the song right into your face.\u00a0 The version of \u201cDreamboat Annie\u201d included here is the reprise, which is nice enough, but in my book the third best of the trio of different versions from the group\u2019s debut album of the same name.\u00a0 This one has a bit of a country feel with piano and strings, and I prefer the straight acoustic version with no strings, and bells in place of piano.<\/p>\n
Moving on, \u201cBarracuda\u201d is simply a great rock and roll song — a great galloping riff, great rhythm section, great vocal, great lyric.\u00a0 \u201cLittle Queen\u201d has a chunky, chugging rhythm to it that reminds me of the Doobie Brothers, not to mention a couple of other Heart songs, \u201cWhite Lightning & Wine\u201d (notably missing here) and \u201cStraight On.\u201d\u00a0 Since all three of those songs are among their best, you\u2019re forced to conclude it\u2019s an approach that works well for them.\u00a0 \u201cKick It Out\u201d is short sweet and to the point, three minutes of pure pedal-to-the-metal joy.<\/p>\n
Of the slower, more pastoral songs from the first couple of Heart albums, \u201cLove Alive\u201d is the obvious star, with a gorgeous melody, a nice groove and a superb arrangement in which Ann\u2019s vocals and a flute play off each other beautifully.\u00a0 Among Heart\u2019s early hits, \u201cHeartless\u201d is probably the most underrated; it\u2019s got a great hook and Ann is a hundred percent behind the lyric.\u00a0 This track also shows off the band\u2019s secret weapon, Nancy Wilson\u2019s equally underrated harmony vocals.\u00a0 Yeah, Ann\u2019s got the big voice, but on an awful lot of Heart tunes, the beauty of the melody comes through in the two sisters\u2019 harmonies.\u00a0 The bridge on \u201cHeartless\u201d is terrific as well, as they keep the hook going and bring in the synths under Ann and Nancy\u2019s harmonies as they hit ascending notes.\u00a0 It\u2019s a moment that manages to be very pretty without losing the song\u2019s essential drive, and leads into a sharp, economical guitar solo.<\/p>\n
\u201cDog & Butterfly\u201d goes on the list with \u201cLove Alive\u201d as one of the best of the group\u2019s early \u201csoft\u201d songs, with stunning acoustic guitar work and a lyric that explicitly explores the duality that the band is all about, that Zeppelin-esque balance between soft and hard, heavy and light.\u00a0 \u201cEven It Up\u201d feels a lot like \u201cStraight On,\u201d but \u2013 interestingly — with more of a new wave edge and kick to it, plus the novelty of a horn section.<\/p>\n
\u201cBebe Le Strange\u201d is a strange tune (no surprise there), with weird dynamics that are loose where most early Heart songs are quite structured.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a great song, but it\u2019s different and has an intriguing adventurousness.\u00a0 \u201cTell It Like It Is\u201d is Heart doing an old school doo-woppy ballad, which isn\u2019t the best fit, but again, it\u2019s different.\u00a0 For the dark side of different, though, we get \u201cThis Man Is Mine\u201d from the group\u2019s disastrous 1981 Private Audition<\/i> album, a bit of completely out-of-character nightclub jazz-pop that finds Ann singing that she\u2019s \u201cUsing every little trick I know to make sure he doesn\u2019t go\u201d\u2026!\u00a0 If there is one thing Ann Wilson has never been, it\u2019s coquettish.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, like far too many of their peers, in the 80s Heart succumbed to the era\u2019s evils of tinny, echoey drums, slick guitars and formulaic songwriting.\u00a0 For all that, \u201cHow Can I Refuse\u201d from 1983\u2019s Passionworks<\/i> is not a bad song.\u00a0 It just doesn\u2019t have the essential grit and humanity that was always part of Heart\u2019s appeal.\u00a0 Classic 70s Heart was Zeppelin sung by Janis; this is Journey sung by Pat Benatar.\u00a0 Heart has always been better than what they turned into in the 80s, and the saving grace of this album is that it stops here.<\/p>\n
A nice bonus at the very end is a storming live rendition of Zep\u2019s \u201cRock And Roll,\u201d in which Heart reminds you where their original inspiration came from.\u00a0 Ann in fact pulls off one of the better Robert Plant banshee wails ever recorded.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Overall, the track selection on Greatest Hits<\/i> is excellent for the era it covers, giving you almost everything you could ask for in a one-CD set.\u00a0 Just as importantly, this album mercifully cuts short Heart\u2019s devolution into prefab arena rock hitmakers in the 80s, focusing instead on the rich, reputation-making classics that fill their 70s catalogue.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5634],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41367","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-heart","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41367"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}