Golden Smog – Stay Golden, Smog: The Best of Golden Smog (Rhino)
A good compilation gives a newcomer a chance to sample a group’s best work over the course of its career. Stay Golden, Smog is not a good compilation. It collects songs from only two of the band’s five official releases, and—crassly, to give fans an incentive to open their wallets—tacks on an early version of “Until You Came Along” and a non-album cover of Brian Wilson‘s “Love And Mercy.” Crass.
You’d be far better off going out and just picking up Weird Tales. It’s an underrated gem of late-90s sad bastard music. You know an album is solid when Jeff Tweedy‘s contributions are not even the best songs—despite the fact that it contains one of Tweedy’s most perfect songs, “Please Tell My Brother.”
If you end up loving Weird Tales as much as you should, you can go back and get Down by the Old Mainstream, and then you’ll have everything on this silly new comp.
Not included in this collection: anything from their debut pre-Tweedy covers EP, On Golden Smog, or anything from their two most recent releases on Lost Highway (Another Fine Day and the Blood on the Slacks EP). We all know it’s work to license recordings that are owned by other labels, but come on, Rhino, do your job.
