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Greatest Hits by Blood, Sweat & Tears (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Greatest Hits
  • Group name: Blood, Sweat & Tears
  • Year: 1972
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $23.42

Greatest Hits by Blood, Sweat & Tears

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I listened to Blood, Sweat & Tears (their 1968 debut record) a while ago and hated it.

What I expected

The other Blood, Sweat & Tears record was “brash,” so I assume this one will be similar, but I hope I’ll like it better.

What it was actually like

I strongly disliked this, but it was not as bad as their earlier record. The most “brash” songs were Go Down Gamblin’, Lisa, Listen To Me, Lucretia Mac Evil, Spinning Wheel (which I still recognized) and God Bless the Child – the latter with a Latin dance sound.

I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know had great guitar, but was still boring, and the saxophone killed it for me.

Hi-De-Ho was offensively bad and Sometimes In Winter was also terrible – with flute!

You’ve Made Me So Very Happy was a Temptations cover, and I’m not a fan of the original, but it was better than this version. Neither was terrible, though.

I Can’t Quit Her also wasn’t bad, and sounded a bit like a late era Beatles knockoff.

And When I Die was one of several from this compilation that was on their first record, but I hadn’t realized until now that it was a Laura Nyro song from The First Songs. Her version was way superior, and this was too Oompa-Loompa for my taste, but I did think the harmonica was good.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

Blood, Sweat & Tears (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Blood, Sweat & Tears
  • Group name: Blood, Sweat & Tears
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Columbia Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $105.00

Blood, Sweat & Tears

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve definitely heard of Blood, Sweat & Tears and expect to recognize some of this music, but can’t name or imagine a single Blood, Sweat & Tears song.

What I expected

Describing the band, the album itself says: “Brash and exciting, their music is a wedding of rock and jazz.”

What it was actually like

This record was terrible. I didn’t expect to love it, but it was a thousand times worse than I imagined. But it was definitely “brash”!

Here’s what I hated the most: if you take bad rock music and mash it up with bad jazz music, it doesn’t turn into something brilliant. There’s nothing clever at all about that. It’s like The Godfather: Part II taking a boring storyline set in 1970s Las Vegas and another boring storyline set in 1920s New York, alternating boring scenes between those two boring storylines, and trying to tell people that it’s a masterpiece.

Blood, Sweat & Tears definitely had plenty of musical talent, but so much of this record was filled with anti-melodic, arrhythmic, even atonal crap – in a word, “brash.”

I recognized Spinning Wheel. And When I Die had some distinct Oompa-Loompa tendencies.

Probably the dumbest part of the whole record was opening and closing it with Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie. That might have made sense for a different record, made by a different band, but all it did here was highlight how much crap the rest of it was.

The only part I liked was the few bars of Blues – Part II that channeled Sunshine of Your Love.

Grade

1/5: horrible enough that I couldn’t make it through