Bond Album: “Explosive: The Best of Bond”

This is another of those odd choices I have, mostly because I listen to hard rock like Black Sabbath. I don't know how I hooked up with this group originally (I think it was off a random music listen off of winamp.com), but I'm glad I did. It's four women who play string instruments. They fuse rock and roll with classical, and produce something that's officially labeled as dance music online, but I'm not sure how to label it. It's all instrumental stuff, and has a nice feel to it. I can get into it from my rock and roll side, and has nice classical string influences. I'm really straining to describe this stuff, as I don't quite know how. I found out about them around May of 2005, and they released a Greatest Hits in July of 2005, so that was a natural pickup. The band does have a cover of the James Bond theme they do, but it's not on here. Likewise, one of my favorites I'd heard before I got this CD isn't on here, either (Quixote).

The DualDisc stuff on the second side was nice, I'd never seen any music videos or concert footage of theirs, so I liked seeing that.

Okay folks I'm going to dare to be different here, and review this album for the music! Excuse the sarcasm, but I'm getting a little sick of reading Amazon reviews that are based on copy protection and sound quality. If you are going to buy something, how had is it to read the product description? And if you are going to complain about something as petty as sound quality, either upgrade you speakers or send the CD back. Come on folks these reviews are for the content! Having said all that here is my review for the CD.

First of all, if you do not like a new take on classical music then none of Bonds work is for you. But on the other side of that, if you are adventurous and enjoy a new twist on the old you will very much enjoy their music. Yes they use a lot of DJ tricks in their music, but to me that is what makes it interesting! Traditional is wonderful and no one is knocking that, but these girls are just paying tribute in a much more unique way. Whether you feel it's a slap in the face is your business. But as I always say, if you aren't sure then listen to samples or borrow a copy from a friend, and make your decision based on your own likes and dislikes. Not what I or anyone else says. Everybody is different.

Now as far as the content of this CD goes it's nothing new. I'm sorry to report but buying this CD is a waste of money if you are like me and already own every Bond CD to date. So basically it would be most cost effective for someone like me to just take my Bond CDs and copy the songs and make this album myself. I guess what I'm saying is there is no real motivation to buy this CD. It has no bonus material attached to it.

However, if you are a first time Bond listener who can't make up your mind on what album to purchase then I hightly recommend this CD. It covers all your Bond bases and you wont be stuck with three or four CDs that you don't enjoy.

My last comment on is yes the disk it copy protected. So if you only own a computer to play music on then don't purchase this release. There are however ways to get around that but those you will have to figure out for yourselves.

I have a couple complaints with this album. While it does contain some great music, it is hardly what I would call "The Best of Bond." Noticeably absent from this disc are several tracks from their first album, "Born," which should have been included such as "Alexander The Great," "The 1812," "Winter," and "Kismet." The last three songs on this disc do not appear on previous studio recordings. In my opinion, a "Best of" album should contain the most popular songs from their previous recordings, and if there's room, 1-2 new songs that would definitely be considered for a "Best of" album in the future. This recording just isn't their best works.

The second big problem is the anti-piracy protection on this disc. I use my computer to listen to music and this disc is unplayable in my computer. What a pain.

If you own all the previous Bond albums, I would say to get this because the dual disc contains a DVD side with music video clips. Those along with the 3 new songs make it worth it for me. However I would not recommend this album to someone looking to get into their music, and I would not take it with me if I could only have one of their albums. I would say that their first album, "Born," is closer to a "Best of" than this CD.

The music is fast, sexy, and vivacious, never knew violins could sound like this. The entire CD is alive with wonderful music.

I love their music and would give it a rating of 5. Unfortunately, they use some sort of evil copy protection that prevents me from playing this on a computer. One thing that I like to do is make copies of my CDs so that I can play them in my car without worrying about it getting destroyed. Or of course keep mix cd's of favorite songs, etc. I'm really dissapointed that a band this cool would use such a bastard technology.