Greatest Hits | ||||
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Greatest hits album by | ||||
Released | 15 October 2002 | |||
Genre | Pop / Rock | |||
Label | WEA | |||
Catatonia chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
NME | (7/10) [1] |
Greatest Hits is a compilation album of Welsh alternative rock band Catatonia's best known songs, mainly the singles, but also includes collaborations between Cerys Matthews with Space (on "The Ballad of Tom Jones") and with Tom Jones himself (on "Baby, It's Cold Outside").
The album was released as a 1CD and 2CD limited edition. The second disc of the two CD edition included lesser known album only tracks and some B-Sides, where although 10 tracks are listed, two hidden tracks are included at the end; "All Girls Are Fly" and "Blues Song".
Despite the band having not releasing any new material since their splitting following their last album, Paper Scissors Stone , yet another compilation was released in 2006, The Platinum Collection .
Joe Goodden, writing for the BBC's Wales Music section, said: "Greatest Hits, a non-chronological run through their singles, is for the most part a cracking ride. 'Road Rage' and 'Mulder And Scully' sound as fresh today as they first did on the radio, and 'You've Got A Lot To Answer For' was a perfect realisation of the terrors of home pregnancy testing." [2]
I review in entertainment.ie said: "this 15-track singles collection arrives as the perfect reminder of the band's all-too-brief time in the spotlight. Catatonia weren't a great band, exactly their sound was too generically indie for that. But they had two major assets: their ear for a winning melody and Matthews's genuine star quality, ..." [3]
Dave Thompson, writing in Allmusic said: "A sensibly titled 15-track epitaph to one of the most premature of all the Brit-pop bandwagon's many casualties, Greatest Hits rounds up each of Catatonia's major U.K. hits, alongside a clutch of well-chosen album cuts and, by way of completeness, the two duets that further established vocalist Cerys Matthews among the country's best-loved performers ... " [4]
Catatonia were an alternative rock band from Wales who gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1990s. The band formed in 1992 after Mark Roberts met Cerys Matthews and Kirsty Kennedy. The first major lineup featured Dafydd Ieuan of Super Furry Animals on drums, Paul Jones on bass, and Clancy Pegg on keyboards. With this line-up the band recorded two EPs, For Tinkerbell and Hooked.
Paper Scissors Stone was the fourth and final album by Welsh band Catatonia. It was released on 6 August 2001 in the UK, and reached #6 on the UK album chart.
Tin Planet is the second studio album by English band Space, released on 9 March 1998.
Cerys Matthews is a Welsh singer, songwriter, author, and broadcaster. She was a founding member of Welsh rock band Catatonia and a leading figure in the "Cool Cymru" movement of the late 1990s.
Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul is the third studio album by American soul singer and songwriter Otis Redding. It was first released on September 15, 1965, as an LP record through the Stax Records subsidiary label Volt.
Way Beyond Blue is the debut album by the Welsh band Catatonia. It has been seen by many fans as being something of a compilation album, as all but five songs on the album had appeared on one of the band's early EPs or singles, albeit in different renditions. It spawned the band's first top 40 hit, "You've Got a Lot to Answer For" which hit No. 35.
International Velvet is the second album by Welsh band Catatonia. It was the band's breakthrough, reaching number 1 in the UK Albums Chart, spawning two Top 10 singles, "Mulder and Scully" and "Road Rage", three other Top 40 singles, "I Am the Mob", "Game On" and "Strange Glue", and catapulted the band and lead singer Cerys Matthews into the spotlight. Album sales reached 900,000, as it became one of the biggest selling albums of 1998 in the United Kingdom. The album was also nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.
"Mulder and Scully" is a song by Welsh alternative rock band Catatonia, released as a single by Blanco y Negro Records from the band's second album, International Velvet (1998). The song makes direct reference to fictional FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, the two main characters of the popular American sci-fi TV series The X-Files who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In an interview Cerys Matthews, co-writer of the song, explained that while she was not a serious fan of the show, the basic premise of the series matched the concept of what she was trying to express.
Equally Cursed and Blessed is the third studio album by Welsh band Catatonia, released in April 1999 via Blanco y Negro Records. It reached number one in the UK Album Chart, and three singles were released from it: "Dead from the Waist Down", "Londinium" and "Karaoke Queen".
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 3 is a greatest hits album by American rock and roll singer Elvis Presley, released by RCA Victor as LPM/LSP-2765 on August 12, 1963. The album was the third volume of an eventual five volume collection, and his eighteenth altogether. It is a compilation of hit singles released in 1960, 1961, and 1962.
Greatest Hits is a greatest hits compilation by Space, released on 8 July 2002 to coincide with Space's split with long-serving record label Gut Records.
"You've Got A Lot To Answer For" is a song written by Cerys Matthews and Mark Roberts and recorded by Welsh rock band Catatonia. Taken from their debut album, Way Beyond Blue, it became the band's first Top 40 hit, peaking at no. 35, largely in part due to a campaign started by BBC Radio 1 DJs Mark and Lard.
"Strange Glue" is a song by Welsh rock group Catatonia. Written by guitarist Owen Powell, it was the band's fourth single to be released from International Velvet and charted at No. 11 on the UK Singles Chart. As a solo artist, lead singer Cerys Matthews later sang "Strange Glue" merged with the song "Galway Shawl" in concert.
"The Ballad of Tom Jones" is a song by English band Space and Cerys Matthews, lead singer of Welsh band Catatonia. Lead singer Tommy Scott described Tom Jones as 'brilliant'. The song became a highly successful radio single, and resulted in Space performing with Jones in Jools Holland's' New Year's Eve television programme.
"Road Rage" is a song recorded by Welsh band Catatonia, taken from their second studio album, International Velvet (1998). It was written by band member Mark Roberts, with the production credit given generally to the band. "Road Rage" was released as the third single from the album on 20 April 1998 by Blanco y Negro, following their breakthrough success with the song "Mulder and Scully". The title "Road Rage" was based on the murder of Lee Harvey by his girlfriend Tracie Andrews in December 1996, something for which singer Cerys Matthews later apologised to Harvey's mother.
"Ballad of Easy Rider" is a song written by Roger McGuinn, with input from Bob Dylan, for the 1969 film, Easy Rider. The song was initially released in August 1969 on the Easy Rider soundtrack album as a Roger McGuinn solo performance. It was later issued in an alternate version as a single by McGuinn's band the Byrds on October 1, 1969. Senior editor for Rolling Stone magazine, David Fricke, has described the song as perfectly capturing the social mood of late 1969 and highlighting "the weary blues and dashed expectations of a decade's worth of social insurrection".
The Platinum Collection is a compilation album of Catatonia's songs ranging from 1994 to 2001.
Robert J. Gregg was an American musician who performed as a drummer and record producer. As a drum soloist and band leader he recorded one album and several singles, including one Top 40 single in the United States. But he is better known for his work as a drummer on several seminal 1960s songs, including Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence". He was also temporarily a member of the Hawks, which later became known as the Band.
Huge Hits 1998 is a compilation album released in November 1998. It is part of the Hits compilation series which began in 1984.
"Game On" is a song by Welsh alternative rock band Catatonia, released as the fifth and final single from their second studio album, International Velvet (1998), in October 1998. It was written by band members Cerys Matthews and Mark Roberts and produced by TommyD and the band. Commercially, the song charted on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 33.