The Essential Chieftains

Split into two discs/sides of the Chieftains - disc one is meditative traditional instrumentals, disc two being collaborations with all sorts of artistes, but primarily Irish ones. Disc one is quite soothing stuff, at least until the bodhran comes about - now that is a really heavy metal instrument if there ever was one. Problem is none of the instrumentals really stick to my mind, besides their taking on of the traditional Chinese tune "Full of Joy" - usually played at Chinese New Year anyway. I prefer the pub-like poppier take on Irish folk as the Dubliners rather than this purist stuff. Disc two is more diverse, and even singers I normally hate, like Sting, is bearable here. My favourite is Rick Skaggs' and their take on "Cotton-Eye Joe", shorn of the Eurodisco nightmare that was Rednex's version. Ok I guess, and definitely gets more pleasant with each listen.

The Essential Tito Puente

I'm not entirely new to his works, but I have to say that this is a more diverse compilation than the two cassette comps I have of him, which are mostly slow to mid-tempo "Mambo" numbers. Here, there are exhilirating, almost salsa-ish tunes, Cubop (Latin/jazz hybrid), straight jazz ("Birdland After Dark", "What is this Thing Called Love?", "Take the A Train" and "Malibu Beat"), an Oriental Chinese pentatonic-sounding piece ("Lotus Land") and my fave piece - the all-percussion African chant "Obatala Yeza". Nice starter to Puente, methinks, and sheds new light on him for me - I actually found my two cassette comps of him pretty boring, compared to later salsa by other people. This comp, however, could do with some post-60's material, such as his collaborations with Celia Cruz.

The Dave Clark Five - The Hits

Not as good as The Hollies as far as British Invasion groups go. Another problem is that the songs are soooooo energetic the DC5 might as well have all been high on amphetamines during recording. The early hits make early Beatles sound anaemic in comparison. Another good thing is that this is only a single disc, so there are very few duff tracks. My Hollies comp is a double disc and there was a lot of song-skipping by me with those two discs. The crap tracks are those "hippie" let's love one another-type tracks, thankfully of which there are only 3 of them. Not bad not bad.....