The Black Crowes

1990-99-Greatest Hits

Classic Rock Renewed On Black Crowes' Greatest Hits CD

Review Score:

(10/10)
Nirvana and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" received all credit in late 1991 for rinsing five years of "Poison"-ous teenyboppers, plastic rappers and costumed criminals off the charts. But the Black Crowes' "Jealous Again," released a year earlier, re-opened the floodgates for blues-based, classic-honed hard rock for adults.

That track starts this greatest hits CD, as straightforward and unpretentious as the Crowes' music has been the last 10 years. Their best known tunes (the snarling "Remedy," the original, power-packed cover of Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle," the Rod Stewart swagger of "Good Friday" and "Thorn In My Pride") are presented chronologically, telling the group's story from smash beginnings to occassional meanderings (the earnest but less successful tracks from 1994's "Amorica" and 1996's "Three Snakes And One Charm") to triumphant return with 1998's "By Your Side" and the slamming "Kickin' My Heart Around."

Vocalist Chris Robinson, his brother, p!artner and occasional foil Rich, and the assorted musicians and producers who've cooped with the Crowes extend a blues-rock tradition reaching back 35 years, from the Yardbirds to Free to Humble Pie (Chris wears his Pie influences on his shirtsleeve - literally) to Faces to Foghat. They energize and refresh classic rock ingredients, a fact not lost on genre giant, Jimmy Page. (His LP and tour with the Crowes invigorated his career.)

"A Tribute To A Work In Progress..." is a hits collection with integrity, and one of the better such albums recently released. It's recommended for those owning the group's catalogue; essential for everyone else.

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