Kevin Ayers - 'Collection' (See for Miles)

This is like watching the clip show at the end of a TV series; I've just listened to 5 and a half LPs of Kevin Ayers and now I gotta push through one more that is just a greatest hits compilation. I really, really do not need to own this. The only justification I can offer: I found this cheap; and it sat on my shelf for years while I filled in the others, and I kinda forgot about it. Since I don't (and won't) own any of his later records, side 2 of this can serve as an adequate best-of from the Sweet Deceiver -> That's What You Get Babe years. The first side, drawn from the last few records posted about here, is somewhat painful because they stick 'May I', which I am already sick of, back-to-back with 'Puis-je'. In the CD era this is more forgivable because of remote controls and automatic track indexing, but in my vinyl haze I would be forced to actually get up, turn on the light, and lift the stylus to avoid hearing the same song twice. Except this is Disolcated Underbite Spinal Alphabetised Encourager Templates, where we don't skip anything. 'Carribean Moon' is here and the single 'After the Show', and also 'Shouting in a Bucket Blues' which is on Bananamour, a record I also don't have. But those are three songs I can live without. Side two starts with two songs from Sweet Deceiver, a record that even the liner notes to this best-of collection disses ('the lowest trough of his career ... showing just bare hints of his usual musical force'). Really! If I'm going to be kind, 'City Waltz' has quite a few of those hints, and is probably (along with 'Strange Song') the highest trough of side 2. 'Blue' and 'Star' are guitarsolo-heavy ballads that are dragged down by their own weight and forced whimsicality. 'Blaming it all on Love' and 'Money, Money, Money' are so limp that I'd almost prefer the rum-soaked fake calypso sound. But I'm being harsh - the 8 songs on side two are probably the best bangs from those years, so I should just be thankful for what's not on here.

Kevin Ayers - 'Odd Ditties' (Harvest)

These ditties aren't that odd, but they didn't make it to any previously released albums. Yeah, this is the singles and b-sides collection that you never wanted from Kevin Ayers, though the first side is good-to-great, being mostly singles and outtakes from the Joy of a Toy/Shooting at the Moon era. The French version of 'May I' is here, though I'm starting to get pretty sick of hearing that song. 'Gemini Child' and 'Butterfly Dance' are the highlights here, though the opening track 'Soon Soon Soon' (an abandoned single) makes a strong case with it's Nazz-like fuzz bass. Nowadays all these tracks would end up as CD bonus tracks so it's kind of weird hearing them together. Side two takes a dip in quality, beginning with a sappy faux-French duet with Bridget St. John and then presenting a slow, orchestrated version of 'Lady Rachel'. Then we dive into a shitty whirlwind of reggae-pop. There's a reason I don't own Bananamour; these songs, with Ayers singing in a fake Jamaican accent, are musical Kryptonite. The whimsical 'Don't Sing no more Sad Songs' picks things up slightly but then we get 'Take me to Tahiti' (which causes my response "and leave him there, please") and the closing single 'Caribbean Moon'. These things are always a bit hit-and-miss and here the hits are relatively clustered together, so I can just stick to side one if I ever actually listen to this again.