Search - Cranberries :: 20th Century Masters: Millennium Collection

I ask the question...........why?

H3@+h | VT | 09/27/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Why ask why you ask? Because this is one of the always short and lame "Millennium" collections, and they already have out an excellent 20 track best of entitled "Stars: 1992-2002". That collection, though also imperfect, includes every song here, and adds 9 more with better packaging. However, rating this just on the music I give it 4 stars. After all, these are very good songs, and roughly their best. Again though, for a few more dollars I'd get the "Stars" collection in a heartbeat, but I guess you're "Free To Decide"."

Allow me to answer the "why" question...

NickAtNite | Toronto, ON | 10/21/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Although "Heathcliff" makes a good argument for the Cranberries' official best-of collection STARS, I would like to answer his question of why this collection exists -- quite simply, because the Cranberries had a lot of casual fans like me who simply don't need everything the 20-track STARS has to offer. There are too many songs on that collection -- including the atrocious "Ridiculous Thoughts" and several same-y latter-day singles -- I'd just end up skipping over, and considering how many albums I buy (and how expensive they often are, especially when they're imports), I just couldn't justify the purchase.



That's why when I saw the Cranberries' "Millennium Collection" on the record store shelf I snatched it up. A quick look at the track listing confirmed my suspicions -- this brief collection has everything a less-than-hardcore fan of the band needs.



The budget-priced "Millennium Collection" instalments get a bad rap. Sure, some of them are unnecessary, but some of them really hit the mark, especially when they summarize good-but-not-great bands whose best output doesn't span an hour's worth of tunes. The Cranberries are a perfect example. Not only is this disc cheap, but it covers all of the band's material in miniature: the deservedly big hits ("Dreams", "Linger", "Ode To My Family"), the sludgy but catchy rockers (mercifully boiled down to three) and their secret weapon, deceptively upbeat melodic pop songs (the best of which, "Analyse", ends the disc on a perfect note). Adding another tune wouldn't have hurt, especially since most "Millennium Collection" discs have twelve songs, but this is still an excellent collection which, unlike STARS, contains no filler. Long live the "Millennium Collection"!



One more minor caveat: some of the songs are in their single edit versions, so this album zips by pretty darn quickly. But hey, that's what the "replay" button is for..."

Agreed, acceptable for the casual fan who just wants (most)

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 06/29/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In the Adam Sandler movie "Click" when he does a backwards search with his magic universal remote to find out what his wife Kate Beckinsale considers to be "their" song, he discovers it is "Linger" by the Cranberries. That surprised me because while it is a lovely little song and it has a couple of romantic lines in the chorus--too wit, "But I'm in so deep. You know I'm such a fool for you. You got me wrapped around your finer, ah, ha, ha"--most of the song is Delores O'Riordan singing about how she caught him holding the hand of another woman, things going wrong, being lied to, being used, and other things that you would not want a couple thinking let alone singing along to when the song plays on the radio. But then people have been latching onto choruses without regarding for what the stanzas are saying for a long time. I can go way back beyond Ronald Reagan thinking Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." was some sort of new American anthem to all those people who were touched by Olivia Newton John's "I Honesty Love You," without picking up it was a song about infidelity (or just plain ignoring it). But during the wedding sequence in the final act of "Click" O'Riordan shows up to sing the song in person, which was a nice touch even if they did not just stop the movie and let us enjoy her performance.



By now everybody should be well aware that the "20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection" is a budget collection where you usually need slightly more than the fingers on both hands to count the number of tracks, and that is exactly the case with "The Best of the Cranberries." This 2005 collection has eleven tracks and front loads big town by having the group's best-remembered songs as the first four tracks. Those songs, and how they did on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart, where the group faried best, are "Dreams" (#15), "Linger" (#4), "Zombie" (#1), and "Ode to My Family" (#11). Other relative chart successes on the album would be "Salvation" #1, "Free to Decide" (#8), and a remix of "Promises" (#12). You also have "When You're Gone," which was #44 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1996 but made it to #22 in 1997. "Analyze" was a Adult Top 40 hit (#26). The only songs that are really missing that I would have expected to find here are "Ridiculous Thoughts" (#14) and "Hollywood," even if the latter is an idiosyncratic choice.



Even with only eleven tracks it is a close call on this one, because pretty much everything you have to have by the Cranberries is here. But you can make the argument that a couple of things are missing and having only eleven tracks on a CD still strikes me as a bit more bare boned. I agree that this album is ideally suited for the casual fan of the Cranberries, but I can also argue that you should be a bit more than a casual fan and upgrade to the twenty-track "Stars: The Best of 1992-2002," even if you do not become a total fan and simply get their five albums (although the first two, "Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?" and "No Need to Argue" would be the two absolute must haves on that short list). It is hard to stop listening to O'Riordan starts lilting and keening."