release date: Sep. 7, 2018
format: 3 cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5]
producer: various
label: Crimson - nationality: England, UK
Best of compilation album by T. Rex released by Demon Music Group and by Demon Records for the double vinyl issue and by Crimson for the cd issue. The double vinyl album contains 24 tracks (6 on each side), but the cd issue compiles 45 compositions (15 on each disc), which is such a major difference that you practically speak of two different releases.
There are so many best of albums by T. Rex that it's more than difficult to pick the best or just one that attempts to embrace all the great songs on one album, and in that regard Gold really doesn't differ from the rest. You can't put a finger on the selected tracks but you always ask yourself why a certain track or more aren't there. At least they got it right in one small regard, or it only appears so at first sight: they may have put the early tracks first and later songs at the end, but it's really far from chronological order. And I mean, when you have access to all this splendid material couldn't you just make an effort an compile it as they were released?! This leads to my biggest complaint: the album starts out with three songs credited Tyrannosaurus Rex... Three! The double vinyl album contains two tracks by the same band, but the formative and highly interesting beginning, which at least should have counted 5-8 fine tracks, is not represented like the later years. And speaking of which, there are simply way too many not great songs on this best of compilation to call it truly great despite the effort in collecting many of the single releases that never found their way to studio albums. Even worse is that a bunch of truly great songs are not here - where are "Chariots of Silk" from Unicorn, "Pavillions of Sun", "Lofty Skies", "Elemental Child" and the title song from A Beard of Stars, "Jewel" and "The Visit" from T. Rex, "Mambo Sun" and "Girl" from Electric Warrior, "Baby Boomerang", "Spaceball Richochet" and "Chariot Choogle" from The Slider, "Tenement Lady" from Tanx, "Sound Pit" from Zinc Alloy..., "My Little Baby" from Futuristic Dragon? Way too many iconic songs from the hands of Bolan are missing out.
I know the album is credited T. Rex, but when you actually go back and pick the band's earliest works, you could at least have picked a few more before selecting all the well-known hit songs of the early 1970's. Overall, the album is an interesting look into the vault of Marc Bolan compositions, but it's simply too mixed in way to many ways to actually leave you satisfied with just that.
There are more than... what? At least 150 different best of releases with selected songs by Tyrannosaurus Rex, T. Rex, and Marc Bolan, I guess, and still, there are, not one single truly great compilation album to be found, as far as I know, that attempts to give you the best songs of the '60s, the early '70s, and Bolan's later years up until his last studio album Dandy in the Underworld (1977). My advise is to make your own playlist of his best songs, as there's definitely enough material to fill a double album.
