Crystal Days 1979-99

Echo & Bunnymen - Crystal Days 1979-99

Crystal Days 1979-99
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CD Details

Artist: Echo & Bunnymen
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2001-07-17
Music Label: Rhino / Wea
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Monkeys (original version)
  2. The Pictures On My Wall (original single version)
  3. Read It In Books (original single version)
  4. Villiers Terrace (John Peel session)
  5. Rescue
  6. Simple Stuff
  7. Stars Are Stars
  8. All That Jazz
  9. Crocodiles
  10. The Puppet
  11. Do It Clean
  12. Show Of Strength
  13. Over The Wall
  14. A Promise
  15. Heaven Up Here
  16. All My Colours
  17. Broke My Neck (long version)
  18. No Hands (John Peel session)
  19. Fuel
  20. The Subject
Music CD 2
  1. The Back Of Love
  2. The Cutter
  3. Way Out And Up We Go
  4. Clay
  5. Heads Will Roll
  6. Gods Will Be Gods (alternate version)
  7. Never Stop (Discotheque)
  8. Watch Out Below (John Peel session)
  9. The Killing Moon (All Night version)
  10. Silver (Tidal Wave)
  11. Angels And Devils
  12. Crystal Days
  13. Seven Seas
  14. My Kingdom
  15. Ocean Rain
  16. All You Need Is Love
Music CD 3
  1. Bring On The Dancing Horses
  2. Over Your Shoulder
  3. Lover I Love
  4. Satisfaction
  5. New Direction (original version)
  6. Ship Of Fools
  7. All My Life
  8. The Game
  9. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo
  10. Lips Like Sugar (single version)
  11. People Are Strange
  12. Rollercoaster
  13. Don't Let It Get You Down
  14. I Want To Be There (When You Come)
  15. Nothing Lasts Forever
  16. Hurricane
  17. Rust
  18. What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?
Music CD 4
  1. In The Midnight Hour
  2. Start Again (live, 1987)
  3. The Original Cutter - A Drop In The Ocean
  4. Heads Will Roll (Summer version)
  5. Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (original single version)
  6. Zimbo (live, 1982 with The Royal Burundi Drummers)
  7. Angels And Devils (live, 1985)
  8. She Cracked (live, 1985)
  9. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (live, 1985)
  10. Soul Kitchen (live, 1985)
  11. Action Woman (live, 1985)
  12. Paint It Black (live, 1985)
  13. Run, Run, Run (live, 1985)
  14. Friction (live, 1985)
  15. Crocodiles (live, 1985)
  16. Heroin (live, 1983)
  17. Do It Clean (live, 1983)

Music reviews of Crystal Days 1979-99

Music Review: 3.5: Diamonds shine so hard-- but there's dross
Rating: 5 Stars

I have all the original albums, pre- and post-reunion, so what lured me into spending quite a bit on a compilation? I only buy anthologies for rarities, live cuts, & demos, demonstrating my Pavlovian response to the bait the record companies and bands hold out after a cult band's done their classic work, disbanded, changed record labels, or won some legal battle over control of the tapes. Well, Echo's fits into the mold of Heart & Soul by Joy Division. Studio cuts mix with Peel Sessions, demos, concerts, alternate tracks, odds and ends unreleased, and cuts from the earliest recordings of a Northern late-70s' and beyond definitive band.

Unlike H & S, all of the studio cuts from the original albums are not included; obviously Joy D. had only two studio albums opposed to the original Echo's five. The shuffle runs in chronological order, and for my money the value emerges most in the Heaven Up Here through Ocean Rain period-- you hear the band toughen up for HUH considerably, recalling similar shifts in their peers The Cure, whatever Julian Cope was doing in and after the Teardrops, Siouxsie's more experimental period, and the more commercial yet still indie-ish U2 and Psychedelic Furs offerings.

I mention these peers to point out a common feature. While Robert Smith, Cope, Siouxsie Sioux, Bono, and Richard Butler shared with Ian a dramatic, attention-getting, and doomy sensibility expressed with ear-catching and off-beat singing styles, the post-punk aura of all these bands was enhanced by the tight rhythm sections and restless guitar work each of these artists were able to convey powerfully, if rather awkwardly or self-consciously at times, as they matured and maneuvered between post-punk, poppier hits, and darker excursions in the early 80s. This compilation places the Echo tracks familiar and novel into this context where they fit into the evolution of the whole British indie-rock scene, shoving away from the strictures of punk but also skirting the mainstream of pop. They rock, but they also haunt and moan-- usually convincingly.

This musical attitude can be heard emerging as early as Monkeys and Fuel on disc one; these both sound like other Northern English bands at the time, but you can feel the four Bunnymen clawing their way towards truth. I read a quote from Moby recently that echoed the observation either from Simon Reynolds in his recent Rip It Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-84 or Dylan Jones' IPod, Therefore I Am (both reviewed by me, and if you're reading this review, you'd like both books) that Heaven Up Here was an astonishingly crafted and unfairly neglected masterwork. The cuts here reveal the band cutting into the harsh beauty, wrenching out the grotesque from the dazzling, in the wake of Ian Curtis' suicide: an event that marked the existential shift of many of the bands I mentioned above. The earlier cuts from the Crocodiles era show here more of a Doors' influence than I have heard on the original album in context, but you cannot doubt that the young band means it, man, and will never be content with mimicry or imitation.

I wish all of Porcupine was here; this remains my favorite Echo album; its lushness angled against its bleakness makes wonderfully chilling art. Disc 2 blends this trenchcoated and windswept period of the band, bookended between their more accessible debut and their lush fourth LP, well, and is the most successful of the four discs in its cumulative clout. Ocean Rain and the s/t fifth album on Disc 3 share the obvious choices, and while they fit well, Disc 4's live and rare cuts are more hit-and-miss than their wise choice of covers might lead you to expect. Still, the Velvets' inspiration is heard to better effect here to balance the Doors' perceived influence, and the former band's feverishness feels more organic for Echo than the fervor sometimes overly gnomic Jim Morrison-ish lyrics that Will confesses have baffled even him!

Yet, at the end of Disc 3, too much (even if not that much in comparison) is given to the late-90s efforts. These are uneven, and while none are embarassing, they feel as if placed here to fill out the twenty-years-ago today sub-titular dates of the anthology. If Crystal Days had ended at the fifth album, more room could have been given to including the left-out cuts from the earlier fine run of LPs. This, to better effect, would have served as a commemoration of the band's signature work.

What's promising for Ian, Will, and mates if not for the limits of this collection is that their post-99 Live in Liverpool, Flowers, and Siberia all feature appealing original songs, and it's too bad that the band could not have waited another five or six years for a 25th anniversary collection that could have shown off to better effect the recent reenergized period of (half at least, in the fashion of what today bills itself as The Who) the band's masterminds.

About the packaging: the book's cleverly laid out, with commentary by Ian and Will (Les is quoted to sparing but good effect) mixed as side-bars with Mick Houghton's narrative. Good for the compilers to list a bibliography that credits one-time "rival" Julian Cope's "total recall" autobiographical account of the era, Head On. The Crystal Days "book" is bound within the box, and this creates a handsome library effect for the package to rest on the shelf. It also makes the box's spine more fraught, and the plastic trays for the four discs grip the CDs tightly, and they do not pop out easily when pressure's applied. This is dangerous, as they risk pulling out the plastic trays from the glued backing to the box ends. This problem made Heart & Soul a mess, as they feature the same flimsy construction. Come to think of it, Downside Up by Siouxsie & the Banshees also has a (suitably?) taut and rigid presentation. Maybe it's a post-punk aesthetic.
More Crystal Days 1979-99 free music reviews:
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Description of Crystal Days 1979-99

Echo & The Bunnymen - Crystal Days 1979-1999 collects 72 tracks, including 14 previously unreleased tracks and 23 cuts never before available on CD. This Rhino Records box set spans the whole of the Bunnymen's career, from their very first recording ('Monkeys') through selections from 1999's What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? The first three discs include all the classic singles and album tracks, as well as rare B-sides, outtakes, unreleased songs intended for a scrapped 1986 album and a pair of lost tunes rescued from the vaults of the BBC. Disc Four kicks off with a few more rarities and alternate takes before plunging into a 50-minute demonstration of the Bunnymen in peak live form, covering Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Jonathan Richman, Television, The Doors and the Velvet Underground in addition to searing versions of their own songs.
Though a much-ballyhooed phenomenon that influenced modern bands as diverse as Pavement, Hole, and Flaming Lips, Liverpool's Echo & the Bunnymen tellingly had their biggest American successes ("Lips Like Sugar" and a cover of the Doors' "People Are Strange") just as they were beginning to come apart at the seams. With frontman Ian McCulloch wailing his impressionistic/expressionistic lyrics (occasionally so obtuse it was hard to tell which adjective applied) over Will Sergeant's fevered, jaggedly hypnotic guitar lines like a shamanic voice in the wilderness, the Bunnymen didn't so much push rock's boundaries as redraw them entirely to their own grand specifications. Compiled with a fan's zeal and the frank circumspection of hindsight, this richly annotated (including running track-by-track commentary by McCulloch and Sergeant) four-disc set documents the Bunnymen from their awkwardly determined '79 tracks and singles through highlights from their '80s albums and a gratifying late '90s comeback. Sprinkled generously throughout are singles, B-sides, Peel Session outtakes, and live tracks that add insightful details to their compelling, if decidedly star-crossed tale. Disc four will be especially welcomed by the faithful, containing mostly live tracks from '83 to '87 and an unlikely, eclectic array of covers ranging from Dylan's "It's All Over Now" and the Stones' "Paint It Black" through the Doors, Lou Reed, and Television that suggest these were impossibly ambitious musicians who made their mark first and discovered their roots later. --Jerry McCulley

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