Search - Horslips :: Greatest Hits

Welcome compilation, but double-check first

John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 06/16/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Since track listing of this CD is not given, I wanted to mention this to caution buyers: often the same 12 tracks are issued as "Greatest Hits" and "Celtic Collections: Horslips" (K-Tel Ireland) "The Very Best of Horslips" and "Horslips Greatest Hits." The covers differ, but what they have in common sometimes is "Celtic Collections" as a label of sorts, so this one too may be a duplicate. They exist as bargain-priced domestic and more expensive imports, but it's always the same dozen songs. These are not the post-2000 remastered versions of songs that the band issued after regaining control of their back catalogue.



Horslips after decades of legal battles has re-released re-mastered versions of all their albums, the good, the bad, and the blah. I have all of their LPs, and some of these on CDs issued during said legal limbo (I apologize to the band, but I am a loyal fan, and there was no way of knowing especially in faraway lands about the band's being ripped off by their labels back in the 80s when I bought 'em.) If you live in America, these new issues are pricy beyond even what import CDs typically cost. So, in the meantime while you save your dough, this is a great appetizer and a fine introduction to lure new listeners. Mine comes from Ireland's branch of K-Tel. Despite what sounds a dubious compilation, you get here a good case made for what the cover calls "the ultimate folk-rock album."



From their first album, "Happy to Meet": "An Bratach Ban." The Irish journalist (and former beau of Sinead O'Connor) John Waters wrote that when he heard this, he thought of what Irish music could have been like if the past 800 years of British rule had never happened. That is, how Irish music might have sounded if it had been exported and crossbred. This melds a reggae-ish bass & drum rhythm to a hoedown C&W banjo break atop Irish trad-meets-sprightly folk, not to mention Irish-language lyrics. Surely a unique song, and a catchy one, as are all on this album.



Four strong songs from "The Book of Invasions" and two from "The Táin" sample their two best LPs, those joining ancient legends with hard folk-rock akin to a prog-Tull blend circa mid-70s. Even their last album, the failed "Short Stories," gives the decent track "Guests of the Nation," although why this shares the title with Frank O'Connor's heartrending story from Ireland's war for independence eludes me. "The High Reel" also shows C%W and American folk's Irish roots well, and is a cut not on any of their studio CDs, only on the odds-and-sods "Tracks from the Vaults." From the first of their two humdrum stretches you get a fine trad version of "King of their Fairies;" their later lurch towards stadium rock anthems gives the bold "The Man Who Built America" title track (too many whirling keyboards for me, but it does stick in your memory) while the transitional, very Tull-sounding (not only to me) "Aliens" provides another trad song done heartily, "Speed the Plough."



Like I said, this is the most inexpensive assortment of Horslips available, and if you live outside Ireland or Britain, I recommend it, but warn you that you may well wish that you could easily afford their albums proper. But read carefully before buying them, as the band made very good albums yet at other times quite dull albums, although their knack for memorable tunes never completely failed them even in their two fallow periods amidst their more Irish-trad themed fertile sonic harvests. Literate, ambitious, clever music, they were Ireland's first DIY rock band, and future generations surely took notice of them in the mid-70s."