Listen My Friends! The Best of Moby Grape | Moby Grape | ok..i know..its a greatest hits album!...

Listen My Friends! The Best of Moby Grape | Moby Grape | Worthwhile Listen...

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Listen My Friends!...

	Listen My Friends! The Best of Moby Grape Moby Grape Sony, 2007 average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

ok..i know..its a greatest hits album! but.....

ok..say you have read all my other reviews and you have never heard moby grape?
maybe you were too young when they were first around?
maybe you never liked them back then and now you may be scared to buy all thier newly reissued cds(albums!).
welp..buy this one.its a super way to start on them.
it includes all thier main songs known to grape heads as well as a few gems .
and it sure has a mean cover doesnt it?
id buy this first if i never heard them.
why did i buy it anyways after knowing them for 40 years?
because i like them! wink.its a good cd!
buy it for your kids!

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Worthwhile Listen...

I am not a rock purist or rock historian, so I cannot comment on the significance of Moby Grape as a band or know enough to describe how it factors into the story of Westcoast Psychedelia. All I know is this is a solid collection of songs with a definite 60s sound. It is great for driving and has a reasonable price tag.

Who Killed The Grape?

The much malinged and exhustively chronicled story behind Moby Grape goes something like this. The genius A&R team at Columbia Records signed MB in the summer of 1966. Thinking that they had the next Jefferson Airplane on their hands, they set out to launch their new find with a unique and untried promotion. Instead of selecting one or possibly two singles to release, they choose instead to release all 12 tracks as singles. This unfocused and confusing marketing stratgey led to little or virtually no air play on top-forty radio and mired the band for what could have been a huge initial launch.

The follow-up album "Wow" contained fewer songs that could have found their way into a top-forty format and some quirky gimmicks, like the "Gene Autry" track and the "Grape Jam" bonus Lp. But even these could not save Wow from mideocore sales and little or no air-play. So how valid is the theory that the Columbia Record Execs killed Grape or is there more to the story? I'm not so sure if it was a case of poor marketing or simply a band that couldn't produce a pure "radio-friendly". three minute, danceable, humable and not-so-forgettable single.

Even after repeated listenings, I can't help but think that "Listen My Friends" contains some beautiful songs by a band that could not be viewed as short on "chops". No way, these guys could hold their own with most any band of their day, But was the song writing first rate? Could they stack up against The Airplane, The Doors, The Byrds, The Jimi Hendrix Experience or The Who? I'll have to agree with other reviewers who have called them "second tier". Afterall what's so bad about being considered in the same breath as Steve Miller, Country Joe & The Fish, Santana, The Blues Project, Electric Flag, The James Gang, Blood Sweat & Tears, Love and so many other fine bands of the golden era of classic rock.

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The West Coast Sounds Like the Grape

Just a singles kid in the 60's I bought most of the first album that way-"Omaha" being a favorite-and being in the Great Lakes area I was torn between that feedback-loud and the harmonies of the Byrds. Grape, Buffalo Springfield and Notorious Byrd Brothers VS Cream, the Who and Stones-San Francisco VS Britain.

This collection is fantastic, not as complete as Vintage but a sweet trip back. As nice as the uncensored poster
from the debut album, oddly in-your-face but satisfying. I recommend "8:05", "He", "Motorcycle Irene" and of
course "Omaha". Enjoy the vibe, man.

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Half a great album

I have sympathy for the many reviewers who obsess over this band and what might have been, but I don't think they were the revelation that many others do. As far as San Francisco bands go, the Grape were more commercially oriented than all but the Jefferson Airplane. Lyrically, they wrote interesting but hardly unique songs--nothing on the order of the best of Country Joe and the Fish; instrumentally, they were more than competent, but Quicksilver Messenger Service was more accomplished and more adventurous. As for the kind of hyperbole that talks about "5-part harmony"...well, harmony can only extend to 4 parts, and the Grape often sang in 3-part, but doubled voices so that the texture was thickened.
The real story here is that the Grape was more than just the sum of its parts. However impossible Skip Spence must have become, his contributions to the first two LPs were crucial, and each subsequent album pales in comparison to Moby Grape and Wow! Thus, the songs from these two LPs are the heart of this compilation, and as competent and earnest as the remainder are, they can't measure up to the songs from the first two. This is a very good one-disc sampler (though I, too, miss It's a Beautiful Day Today), but my advice is to try to obtain the deleted Sundazed CDs of the first two LPs until such time as they are rereleased in "authorized" versions. Avoid the terrible Matthew Katz-owned San Francisco Sound CDs--they were mastered at incredibly low dynamic levels and sound horrible; in addition they are criminally over-priced.

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