Enya - Only Time: The Collection

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Music reviews of Only Time: The Collection

Music Review: Only Time - money well wasted?
Rating: 2 Stars

Lyrics enclosed; disc 4 contains a multimedia section with a screen-saver, a photo gallery (actually a slide show of the pictures included in the booklet), and a video of "Silent Night". This box is limited to 20,000 copies (how many will actually sell?)

This 4-disc compilation literally floored me! Not because of the music (that's a topic for another day...), but because of what's been put together in this package; I won't comment on the songs themselves, because, after all, you already know Enya if you're considering buying this set.

The box (covered in purple velvet, oooh!) features a booklet that gives the lyrics to the songs, as well as some track-by-track comments (read "meanings") on each of them. No biography or truly interesting facts.

What's worse, the 4 discs arrive just short of 3 (gasp!) hours of music (when in fact, given some small effort, one could fit over 5 hours!)

I'm no mathematician (even if I'm going to sound like one!), but Enya has released 5 albums so far; here's what I would have done to please the fans (or, at least, myself!)

Put in ALL of "Enya" (39:28) plus the "bonus" track included in its re-release, "Celts" (a re-recording of "Portrait", at 3:13); so we're at about 43 minutes;

Put in ALL of the second album, "Watermark", which lasts 43:10;

Put in ALL of the 3rd album, "Shepherd Moons", which clocks in at 43:33, and add the english version of "Book Of Days" for another 2:57 (the original release of the album contained that song but sung in gaelic)

Put in ALL of her 4th album, "The Memory Of Trees", which would consume another 43:53, plus the 2 previously unreleased tracks ("Only If..." and "Paint The Sky With Stars") from her "best of" entitled "Paint the Sky With Stars") which would take up 7:34

Add to the mixture ALL of her latest album, "A Day Without Rain", and there goes another 37:35

With me so far? I've used up, with ALL of the 6 albums (including the "best of") and their various editions, a little under 222 minutes... I have room for 80 (yes, EIGHTY) more minutes! More than enough for ALL her b-sides (there's a little more than a dozen), the "May It Be" track from the soundtrack to "Lord Of The Rings - The Fellowship..." (which is included in this box set).

I would then have her WHOLE CATALOGUE! (who knows, maybe even squeeze in the soundtrack to "The Frog Prince", which lasts 35 minutes!)

Now THAT would have been money well spent...

After the record label has already released "Paint the Sky..." and the 3-disc "A Box Of Dreams" (IT lasts 159 minutes, so I could also talk about THAT), I'm now worried that a 5-disc compilation set might be released in 2005, as a 20-year retrospective of her career.

But because I love her work, I'll probably buy that too (and complain again?)

Description of Only Time: The Collection

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Folk
• World Music
• New Age
• Pop
• Rock