Another band joins the best of queue
'Been Caught Steeling' is one of the rock anthems of the nineties. 'Just Because' demands similar status for this decade, and it's hard to look past such classics when studying the tracklist for this best of collection. It's fair to say that this album is worth owning for those two tracks alone, although a trip down your local iTunes is probably a more cost effective way of just getting those songs if that's all your interested in.
Those Jane's Addiction smash hits are just two of the sixteen tracks on this CD, that spans the bands five US releases, from their self-titled debut in 1987, through to their come back 'Strays' in 2003.
'Up from the Catacombs: the Best of Jane's Addiction' is predominantly made up of tracks from the band's second and third releases, 'Nothing Shocking' and 'Ritual de lo Habitual'. It opens with the anthemic 'Stop', a track heavy with guitar rifts and solos and raw rock attitude, that sets the tone for much of this CD. It's clear from the opening notes of 'Stop' how these characteristics helped them become such a popular live outfit in the late eighties and early nineties.
Other interesting tracks to look out for include 'Whores', 'Ain't No Right', 'Had A Dad' and 'Superheroes', the latter was used on the soundtrack for the US TV show 'Entourage'. However, it's very hard not to be drawn back to the middle of this album and give their two career defining classics another full volume blast.
Fittingly this compilation closes with a live track, another of the band's well-known songs 'Jane's Says', for the band are possibly as well known for being behind the US travelling festival Lollapolooza as they are for their own music. The event was started in 1991 and ran throughout the majority of the nineties. It returned, as the band did, in 2003, and Perry Farrell has said he'd like to bring the event to Europe. On his wishlist to perform would be Muse as headliner, Kasabian and Arctic Monkeys. Farrell has also spoken of his liking for the 'Nu-Rave' labeled Klaxons.
So with the travelling festival's European visit one for the future, for now in the UK we have the band's best work on one CD to enjoy. In short this is at times interesting, sometimes rewarding but often if you're not already a fan of Jane's Addiction, a realization that a lot of their material was weak, overshadowed by a small number of mighty classics.