Procol Harum Album: “Secrets of the Hive: The Best of Procol Harum”

I'm glad I bought this 2-CD set of Procol Harum songs, even at the mildly steep import price. It's kind of a 40th anniversary thing (their first single, "Whiter Shade of Pale," came out in 1967), and many of the songs are so memorable. I've been going around with "Homburg" and even "the Idol" running in my head! At first I thought that the band's mid- to late-'70s period was under-represented on these two discs, but I counted and there are 10 songs out of 35 from those albums. (Fans seeking a more complete overview of the period should seek out the fine but now deleted "Chrysalis Years" PH CD.) What worked less well for me are the newer songs tacked on at the end of each CD, from Procol's '91 and '03 "reunion" releases. Those six tunes are generally not at the level of the rest of the stuff, leading to a sharp dropoff in quality. It's not a good way to wrap things up. (The lone exception to the substandard newer material is the stately instrumental that closes the 2nd disc, "Weisselklenzenacht," from the '03 Wheel's on Fire CD.)

One less important but still nice aspect of this set is the excellent and informative liner notes, 28 pages of info!

I had just gotten this prized posession from Amazon and threw it in the car for a vacation drive south to Disneyland for me and my daughter. She's in high school so I didn't think she'd care for it much but, I was impressed by her good taste after all, and it turned out to be our road music for about 3 complete plays. A great selection of some of the smartest music from the 70s and 80s. If you just kind of know about Procol Harum because you like "Whiter Shade of Pale" and maybe "Conquistador" then get this - it may just blow your mind baby.

Procol Harum

Secrets of the Hive / The Best of Procol Harum (2 CD set - Salvo)

I have to start by offering my apologies to Procol Harum. I have gone for decades with nothing but an old `hits' LP of the group that obviously did not do them justice. I had, based on that old LP, mistakenly considered them to be a two-song band with little else to offer. This two CD compilation has opened my ears to a band I did not know about. This set has some of the most amazing songs I have ever heard (songs I should have know about decades ago). To me, and to my shame, these songs really were a `secret', but now that I have heard this set, I will have to investigate their original albums and discover what else I have been missing. Hopefully the original albums will have been remastered as beautifully as this 2 CD set. This set ought to get Six Stars.

Procol Harum is my second favorite band of all time, second only to the Stones, and just "second" only marginally above Fanny. That said - well, they've never, ever been shy about repackaging themselves. "Secrets" may be the newest compilation of Procol Harum's material, but it is, by NO means, the "best." A) of all the tracks listed hereon, an unnecessarily inordinate amount of attention is is devoted to PH's post-1991 output. And B), what is worse, much is made of the fact that a live version of the song "Into The Flood" is included. Beware, folks: unless this recording is of the 9/17/2001 "millineum" concert, which, a rarity, featured 2 Procol Harum guitarists, the sublime Mick Grabham, who was PH's guitarist from "Grand Hotel" thru "Something Magic" - Procol's most prolific period - and the..."current" guitarist, the ever-histrionic G Whitehorn - and I have a bootleg of that concert - that one song...just...ain't...worth...it. A far, far superior PH compilation is that "Singles A & B," which offers some real treasures in addition to just "rare and remixed B-sides": there's a live version of "Luskus Delph," previously unreleased from the "Edmonton" session; (forgive me if I "adjective" too much like Cameron "incindiary" Crowe here), there's a live, absolutely transcendent version of J Strauss' "Blue Danube"; and especially, there's the original "Into The Flood," originally an unused song-demo for 1991's "Prodigal Stranger" - and the guitarist on IT is Bobby Mayo, Peter Frampton's late great keyboardist/rhythm guitarist/conscience. The short almost offhand solo that Mayo delivered, is - and I shall resist the justifiable urge to say, "Well, DUH" here - vastly superior to what I HAVE heard Grabham and Whitehorn do, and what I can only surmise that 'horn currently...excessively delivers. But hey - this IS Procol Harum we're talking about here - and if the Stones can inflict the satanic "Miss You" on every single "best of" THEY'VE released since it was..."hatched," I guess Procol Harum can be spotted one sort of..."duf" track. And "Hive" does present all new liner notes courtesy of Procologist Roland Clare, always a pleasure, but - again - be forewarned, every song on "Hive" has been released before, some more than 4 or 5 times...