You bet your Ash this compilation is terrific!

Sometimes a review is hard, and you spend a lot of time trying to craft a convincing stance with the hopes of the reader checking out something new.*

During these pandemic times, I had the notion this would be an ideal opportunity to review a couple collections and/or box sets for people that might not be fans of a band, but might find these collections and/or box sets useful and perhaps even pleasurable and for sure illuminating.

Today's was an easy-to-write quick review because the item in question is a no-brainer.

Everyone has heard of Ash. Even if you don't know Ash, you know Ash. Either you heard their song for the Danny Boyle film A Life Less Ordinary titled "A Life Less Ordinary" or you've heard "Girl From Mars." Trust me, you've heard them.

While Ash is relatively unknown in the U.S. these days, they are still a force overseas, so while longtime fans here have access to all their work, we  don't tend to have fans around us to share or discuss said music with. And Ash has released a few "career compilations" over the years, and unlike other compilations they don't seem tailor made to annoy with each iteration of the "greatest hits" since the compilations tend to add tracks instead of removing one or two tracks that are on every other compilation.

So this year, when Ash announced yet another collection off their music titled Teenage Wildlife: 25 Years of Ash I was like, O.K., this seems fine, even if I'm not sure how they'll expand on the previous "greatest hits" I had, until I clocked the 3 disc version of the compilation stuffed with all the hits and a bunch of rare goodies.** Plus, this is the cover!

So Teenage Wildlife: 25 Years of Ash wins my complete endorsement. If you already own a ton of other collections from Ash, or all their singles and b-sides ... you'll still find this delightful. And if you are a casual fan or passive Ash listener, this is an excellent argument for devoting more of your time to discovering Ash's genius with loud guitars and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hooks.

Yeah, this one gets a thumbs-up!




*Even more rarely they attempt a convincing stance on why the reader should not check out something new, but these days those reviews are far less frequent and in today's environment—IMHO—less helpful. In this instance, some of my reviews mentioned in the following paragraph will be "warnings" to all but the most fervent fans.

**In fact the only letdown was discovering that disc 3's final track, hidden but entitled "Devil’s Haircut," is not a Beck cover. That would've been neat.