Well at least they had both the foresight and the hindsight not to call this a ‘Greatest Hits’ package, a package that would in all probability consist of little more than a picture of tubby little bald fella with a cuppeth not exactly overflowing with sales and an I.O.U slipped in with the liner notes. But sales don’t mean anything and Blackie doesn’t seem to give a s**t either way anyway, so there’s little point in heckling the man. After the Pixies, Frank altered his own trajectory and flew into an orbit of his misadventures stopping off on planets country, punk-vaudeville and garage-rock on his marauding interstellar travels into hyperspace. And here on this handsome two-cd package is his captain’s log. On one disc we have all his greatest ‘spits’ – the fabulously super-svelte, ‘Speedy Marie’, the pound-and-a-half of Bob Mould power-pop that is ‘All My Ghosts’ and ‘I Gotta Move’, the sexy spacehop swagger of ‘Czar’, The Stooges-esque, ‘Ten Percenter’ and ‘Freedom Rock’ and all the courageous rocket-fuel inbetween. And on the bonus disc a fine collection of live takes that includes ‘Bullet’, ‘Nadine’, ‘Living On Soul’ and ‘All Around the World’.
So there you have it, a two-disc chronological anthology of Frank Black’s work covering Black’s nine solo albums recorded during the period referred to in the title, plus a bonus CD of live tracks recorded during Black’s 2006 North American tour. And if that wasn’t it there’s also a brand new Black Francis track, Threshold Apprehension, taken from his forthcoming album, Bluefinger.
I have to confess that these carefully edited highlights have revealed one cracking second-half. Well worth the expense.