The Byrds Album: “20 Essential Tracks From the Boxed Set: 1965-1990”

The Byrds represented all that was good about the sixties. In this single band one can find vibrant examples of the free spirit of the folkies, the irresistible melodies of the poprock bands and the wavy psychodelia of the hard rockers. The Byrds' music has been repackaged countless times but there has yet to be a definitive best-of collection for this monumental band. The Byrds should have a solid greatest hits package to act as a good starting point for new fans and, because they were predominantly a singles band like the Beach Boys, the Kinks or the early Beatles, an uninterrupted collection of their finest classics to be placed under a list of essentials for any record collection.

20 Essential Tracks is much too spotty and ill-compiled to serve either of these purposes. The collection does a somewhat acceptable job of collecting the Byrds' early hits, including their fantastic, groundbreaking covers of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!," their hair-raising psychedelic classic "Five Miles High" and "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better," a tune that stands as one of the best break-up songs in pop music history. Still, the absences of "Chimes of Freedom" and "It Won't Be Wrong" are inexcusable. Moving on to the middle years, 20 Essential tracks includes such fine songs as the windy "Goin' Back" and the gorgeous Mother Earth anthem "The Ballad of Easy Rider" but absolutely ignores their entire 1968 country-rock masterpiece, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Aside from the relatively weak "I Wanna Grow Up to be a Politician," the latter years are completely overlooked (No "Tiffany Queen?" No "Citizen Kane?"). The disc ends with four good, but certainly not "essential," tracks from a reunited 1990 version of the Byrds. It stops at 57:53, leaving more than twenty unused minutes that could have been used to fill 20 Essential Tracks' numerous gaps. The woefully measly Super Hits fares even worse than 20 Essential Tracks and their two-volume Greatest Hits albums is a outright rip-off, considering it includes enough music to be placed on one disc for the price of two. In the wake of the impressive success of the Beatles' 1, music stores and television commercial breaks are being raided by new, remastered, 70+ minute compilations of such noteworthy bands as the Doors, Pink Floyd and the Doobie Brothers. Let's hope the Byrds are next.

The four new tracks aren't bad at all (though "From A Distance" makes me cringe a bit; it's the cover of a big 80's pop hit that has since faded in the public's memory). However, they aren't the Byrds' best work, and it's frustrating that they would include those tracks and leave out such essential work as "Chimes of Freedom," "Bells of Rhymney," "She Don't Care About Time," "100 Years From Now," and many others in what could have been a definitive overview of their entire career. Furthermore, the CD clocks in well under an hour, which means they could've fit at least half a dozen more songs on it.

While it's not a bad introduction to the band, hitting most of the highlights, as a career summation, it doesn't do them justice. "Notorious Byrd Brothers" and "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" are both two of the finest albums every cut in rock history, some say the band's best, but the former is represented by one tracks and the latter by none!

The new, expanded edition of Greatest Hits may have 14 songs compared to the 20 here (though like I said, the four new tracks aren't their best work, so only 16 can be considered Byrds classics), but it's a better compilation. For one thing, it focuses on the first few years of their career, so those early albums get better representation. Furthermore, the sound on that disc is remastered in 20-bit sound from the original tapes. There's nothing bad about the sound on "20 Essential Tracks," but audiophiles will be drawn by the better definition and depth of the "Greatest Hits" CD.

"Greatest Hits" is especially a better choice if you're going to pick up a CD or two of their later albums. However, if you really had to pick just one CD covering their entire career and you're not too big on the best possible sound, then by all means pick "20 Essential Tracks."

The Byrds, along with The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones, were one of the pioneer rock bands of the mid-1960's. They are sometimes assigned credit for originating psychedelic rock with the 1965 release of 'Mr. Tambourine Man', though many would not regard that song as true acid-rock... it's just too folky. But if you do, it places the band on a par with John Lennon's first psychedelic recording, 'Tomorrow Never Knows', and The Pretty Things 'LSD'. If you don't then you will certainly register "Eight Miles High" as the first mainstream venture by any band into psychedelia. It was released in 1966 and eventually landed at number 14 on the US charts. The song is a clear departure from much of the bands chart toppers, which generally feature a squeaky clean pop appeal. 'Eight Miles High', with it's trembling opening bass line, sanely schizophrenic lead guitar from Roger McGuinn (with a sound no lead solo has ever duplicated), and high flying lyrics, represents the epitome of psychedelic rock still today, standing up nicely to Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze' and Jefferson Airplane's 'White Rabbit', among others.

In the 1960's I owned 'The Byrds Greatest Hits' on vinyl. That compilation included two songs I wish had been offered here, 'Chimes of Freedom' and 'Bells of Rhymney'. Nine or ten of the other songs are the same however, and all are remastered. On '20 Essential Tracks' the producers opted to sample each phase of The Byrd's long tenure, adding tunes from later and less accomplished incarnations of the band, such as 'I Wanna Grow Up To Be a Politician'. It's hard to argue with the early selections, however, nor with the four tracks from the 1990 Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, and Chris Hillman reunion. While these four songs lack the cultural setting to gain recognition today, they are strong compostions neatly performed, and I'm pleased to have them, especially the more I listen to them. They truly rival some of their classic hits. Other songs not included on the previous 'Greatest Hits' LP, such as the mantra-driven 'Jesus Is Just Alright', 'Goin Back', and 'Chestnut Mare', also keep pleasant company.

The Byrds, of course, had a special knack for transforming folk into rock, and Roger McGuinn's distinctive singing and 12-string guitar are the trademarks of the band. Nearly all Byrds songs feature a 'big', enveloping sound, crisp harmonies, and a slick guitar riff. Crosby, Hillman, and Gene Clark make writing and vocal contributions, but compared to McGuinn their influence here is negligible. Despite not even being in the band, Bob Dylan may have had a greater influence on the public persona of The Byrds than Crosby, Hillman or Clark. Four of the songs on the collection were penned by Dylan, and the liner notes detail his essential contribution to 'Ballad of Easy Rider' as well. And McGuinn sounds more like Dylan (without trying) than any other performer, completing the connection.

One valid criticism of investing in any Byrds compilation is that many of these songs have long been, and even continue to be, played to death, first on Top 40 playlists, and today by golden oldies radio. It could be argued that we all reached the saturation point of hearing 'Turn Turn Turn' or 'Mr. Tambourine Man' somewhere around 1967, yet these songs, if studied, release a texture and resonance that confirms why they still demand overplay four decades after their release. Their sound embodied so much of what made the 1960's the 1960's that they have achieved immortality in the shelf life of rock music.

If you're not looking for a definitive collection, a small investment here can afford a whole lot of musical enjoyment. While the complete box set may be necessary to satiate the completist, the essentials are available for those of us desiring an overview at a more modest cost. My 'like new' copy only put me out $1.99, leaving plenty of bread for other essentials.

A somewhat uneven compilation that was originally meant to serve as a sampler for their first boxed set (

), but which ultimately works pretty well as a Greatest Hits collection, despite the inclusion of some 1990 reunion recordings. Most of the hits are here, but for me the heart and soul of The Byrds is on album cuts such as "Deportee", "Time Between", "This Wheel's On Fire" or "Renaissance Fair", none of which are included here. But if you need a brief collection from which to start listening to this extraordinary band, you could do a lot worse than this neat CD.

So if you don't know, there's this collection, the "Best ofs" volume 1 & 2, the 2-disc "Essential Byrds", and the box set of course. Why do I like this one? It's a 20 track single disc, the volumes 1 & 2 are too little, and the others are too much. Plus this is a career-spanning best of the best, roughly. Obviously with a band like the "Byrds" this is missing alot, mostly for me "Wasn't Born To Follow" from the "Easy Rider" soundtrack, but other than the box set, you can't have it all. Included are the big hits "Tamborine Man", "Turn Turn Turn", and "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better", later covered by "Tom Petty". Then it has "My Back Pages", "Chestnut Mare", and "Jesus Is Just Alright", later covered by the "Doobie Brothers". Plus 4 new (1990) tracks, "Love That Never Dies" being the best of those. True there's no "Gram Parsons" material, but you should have his solo, or "Flying Burrito Brothers" stuff anyway. So I guess you just need to decide which collection works for you. For me, a casual fan, this one makes me feel "Eight Miles High".