The Guess Who - Anthology

38 of their best-known classics on 2 CDs including 13 Top 40 hits. Digitally remastered. RCA. 2003. Album Description

Guess Who?? Who would have guessed...

The Guess Who had over a dozen bonified hits through the 70's. This is a better than average compilation of all their music and then some. Glad its in my collection. August 14, 2008

A Scam?

I purchased this CD set for the studio chatter on "These Eyes" as mentioned on Amazon's Track Listing. However, this does not exist on CD. The time difference tells a tale between CD version and MP3 version. Maybe you must also buy the MP3 Download to obtain it. It's not a bad CD set, and the sound quality isn't bad. But, hey, Guess Who material wasn't the audiophiles choice. The CD set contains nothing that you haven't heard before. July 15, 2008

What I expected!

The CD is exactly what I expected with all the greatest songs by The Guess Who July 8, 2008

This Is The One, Alright

Like virtually all of the other reviewers so far, I find this set to be hands-down the best-sounding Guess Who compilation out there. It's one of those that instantly becomes a treasured part of your collection.

It's great to finally have "Shakin' All Over", too hard to find on cd for too long. But that's just one track among almost forty and every one shines. Burton Cummings has got one of rock's greatest voices. Randy Bachman and Kurt Winter are both terrifically talented guitarists. The songs are top-notch and the selection and sequencing of this set, impeccable.

The booklet features very well-written notes and full track details with some great photos.

If you don't own any GW on cd, this is the one to get, alright. If you do, you should still get this, you won't be disappointed.

April 22, 2008

track it down

If you're a fan or have more than a single-disc, passing interest in the Guess Who, this set is exactly what you need. It is essential in multiple respects.

Previous Guess Who compilations have been marred in any number of ways, first by limited song selection, then later by lackluster mastering. Early comps were issued in the days of vinyl and as such were designed for the space limitations of that medium. Fine for their day, they did not translate to an expanded digital format all that well. Attempting to give the band their due, RCA surprised even fanatics by issuing an exhaustive, three-disc collection back in the mid-'90s. At first glance, it appeared to contain all the Guess Who one would need. A few fan-favorite tracks were missing - not an uncommon complaint with comps - but a generous helping of obscure album tracks were included. Unfortunately, the so-called mastering engineer over-equalized and compressed the everloving s**t out of the tracks, resulting in excessive, distorted frequencies and hiss, and leaving the music with virtually no dynamic range or room to breathe. It quite literally sounded like listening to a bad FM broadcast.

Most previous grievances are rectified with "Anthology", a nearly perfect retrospective. First, the track selection is superb. All the hits from 1965-1975 are here including "Shakin' All Over", making this the first and only truly comprehensive Guess Who compilation to be had. Second, a handful of tracks are represented by their rare, superior single mixes, appealing to collectors. As with other GW comps, a few fan favorites are absent but scarsely missed as outstanding album tracks such as "Pain Train", "The Answer" and "Cardboard Empire" make their U.S. digital debut here. Lastly, kudos to mastering engineer Vic Anesini, who makes no ill-advised, vain attempts to over-compress, over-EQ, or over-modulate volume levels, easily making this the best-sounding GW comp ever.

My only complaint with the set is that the "Canned Wheat" tracks run a bit too fast. I suppose it is possible that that album and its singles have always been mastered at the wrong speed and the intent was to correct that anomaly, but they sound sharp and unnaturally fast here. (This would not be an unprecedented move: when it was discovered that the Stones' "Beggars Banquet" and side one of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" had always been mastered too slow, decisions were made to restore those classics to their intended, faster pitch on subsequent reissues.) April 21, 2008

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