Small Faces - The Best of the Small Faces

 

This is the last one - I promise! But, as I've said, each one of these CD's have some tunes that don't appear of the others so there's always more to collect! I'm sure that someone has put out a more complete box set by now, but their tunes were hard to come by when I first started picking these up!

This one has some earlier numbers but does cross most of their career at one point or another. It opens with the 60's pop of "Sha La La La Lee", fairly lightweight, but highly enjoyable and catchy as hell, followed by their Xmas song, "My Mind's Eye", a hip number that stole from "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", of all places! "Universal" is squeezed in here (although this seems like a somewhat different take, maybe?) then we get their debut smash "Watcha Gonna Do About It?", a two chord stomper that has become a classic garage rocker with a fantastic, feedback-drenched solo, and in the same vein is "Hey Girl", a nice, energetic, Who-like rockin' shouter. 

"I Can't Make It" shows up succeeded by "All Or Nothing", another great one of theirs, organ-dominated and filled with powerful dynamics, giving a hard-edged soul backing to Steve's terrific vocals, then a few from the other comps - "Here Comes the Nice", "Afterglow", "Tin Soldier", "Autumn Stone". "Rollin' Over", the Humble Pie-styled rocker from Ogden's sneaks in with "Lazy Sunday" next up, appropriately, then Ian leads on piano for a fine reading of Brenda Holloway's Motown tear-jerker, "Every Little Bit Hurts" with Steve on vocals, natch, whose mood improves for the upbeat finger-snapper "I Feel Much Better" before it all comes to an end with their biggest number, "Itchycoo Park".

Another good one that moves from their debut to their end, but there's always great numbers left off of each one of these comps, so just collect them all!