Anthology

There's little question that Shout! Factory's double-disc compilation The Marshall Tucker Band Anthology: The First 30 Years is exhuastive. It spans 32 songs, sampling from 20 albums, running more or less in chronological order, and giving a good idea of the group's narrative…

What's in a name? If you love mid-'60s folk-rockers the Mamas & the Papas, this four-volume U.K. Complete Anthology (2004) speaks for itself. The 101 selections run in excess of five hours centering on the vintage long-players If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (1966), The Mamas & the Papas (1966), The Mamas & the Papas Deliver (1967), The Papas & the Mamas (1968), People Like Us (1971), and The Monterey International Pop Festival (1971)…

An actor, humanitarian, and the acknowledged "King of Calypso," Harry Belafonte ranked among the most seminal performers of the postwar era. One of the most successful African-American pop stars in history, Belafonte's staggering talent, good looks, and masterful assimilation of folk, jazz, and worldbeat rhythms allowed him to achieve a level of mainstream eminence and crossover popularity virtually unparalleled in the days before the advent of the civil rights movement – a cultural uprising which he himself helped spearhead.

The Smithereens already have a single-disc compilation, 1995's excellent Blown to Smithereens: The Best of the Smithereens. Released in 2004, From Jersey It Came! The Smithereens Anthology expands on that collection, taking 15 of its 16 songs (a cover of the Outsiders' "Time Won't Let Me" is left behind) and adding 24 other tunes, including their version of "Downbound Train" from a Bruce Springsteen tribute and a selection from 1999's God Save the Smithereens, for a grand total of 39 tracks over two discs…

There is a track listing on the back cover of Metro Doubles' two-CD Procol Harum compilation, Classic Tracks and Rarities: An Anthology, and potential purchasers are encouraged to consult it before buying this album. It is a natural tendency to assume that a collection with a title like that surveys the group's entire career, but in fact, this one focuses on only the first four albums, Procol Harum, Shine On Brightly, A Salty Dog, and Home…

In October 1990, Lou Reed interviewed Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, president of the newly emancipated Czechoslovakia, and – surprisingly? – a Velvet Underground fan. During the course of their conversation, Havel handed Reed a book. "These are your lyrics, hand-printed and translated into Czechoslovakian. There were only 200 of them. They were very dangerous to have. People went to jail." Nobody will go to jail for owning Between Thought and Expression, but Reed's lyrics remain dangerous – not, as in Communist Czechoslovakia, for what they are, but for what they say…