Original Album Series (5 Pack)

love their songs

I love the Original Album Series. It is a cost effective way of adding artists and their albums to your music collection and much better than the 'hit and miss' compilations on offer.I was introduced to Bread a couple of years ago by a friend and I thought I had no right or reason to be drawn to their music. I simply thought I shouldn't and couldn't like them - how wrong I was.These five albums possess such an accomplished feel and depth that they have become an essential part of my music collection and my life.'Bread' the 1968 debut album is melancholic folk rock - "Loneliness comes and stays, torturing nights and days" writes and sings David Gates on 'Look At Me.' Surely one of the greatest songwriters there has been.Their second album, 1970's 'On The Waters' introduces keyboards to Bread's music and expands musically from the debut. It could be described as the birth of soft rock, as is apparent on the single 'Make It With You.'I am currently listening to David Gates' 'First' while writing this review and it's musical kinship with Bread's third album - 1971's 'Manna' is obvious with it's lush string arrangements and piano based compositions.The harder edged and aptly titled 'Guitar Man' and, 'Baby I'm A Want You' - both released in 1972, make up the albums included in this collection. The band had introduced steel guitar and fiddle to the music by now which gave the albums a honky tonk, country tinged feel. 'Guitar Man' includes the hardest rocking song they ever did - 'Telecota.'Bread released a comeback album 'Lost Without Your Love' in 1977 which received only lukewarm reviews and isn't included here.These albums aren't remastered and the cardboard replicas of the original albums are difficult to read without glasses, but it is the music which is important and the words and music of David Gates, Rob Royer, James Griffin, Mike Botts and Larry Knechtel have brought me hours of pleasure and satisfaction for which I am grateful.

Bread were something of a curious anomaly in their brief, but very successful career. They were signed to the Elektra Records label, an outfit that gave the world such counter-cultural heroes as The Doors, Love, The Stooges and the MC5. Bread were a straight-down-the line, middle-of-the-road adult-orientated Pop band. In lead singer and main writer David Gates, they had a front man who possessed a strong, smooth, very appealing voice, with a great emotive range, and who showed an unabashedly romantic lyrical sensibility, effortlessly crooning such MOR standards as 'If' (memorably destroyed by Telly Savalas), 'Baby I'm-A Want You', 'Guitar Man' and 'Everything I Own', the latter of which was written by Gates in memory of his late father, although it can also be read as love song, too. These Original Album Series sets offer up good value for money in no-frills packaging, and at under a tenner a pop, this is ridiculously good value. All of these albums are chock-full of melodic gems, slickly produced and musically very well-rendered. I suppose the likes of Bread eased the path for the likes of The Carpenters, and it's easy to forget that, in the late sixties and early seventies, there were legions of music fans who didn't want to "Turn on, tune in, and drop out", or join The Revolution. As such, music like this proved the kind of soothing musical balm when the guitars got too loud.David Gates split Bread up around 1973, going solo - he never really matched the heights of his former band, however, and his real musical legacy is found within the sounds of these five albums. This is classy pop that has worn well over the years.

This is an attractive package - five LP-replica-style CDs in a slip case. All look and sound great. If you already know the albums, then you'll know what to expect, but if you just know Bread from their hit singles, it's worth knowing that a lot of the album material is less attractive (to my ears, anyway) than the hits like "Make it With You", "Guitar Man", "Baby I'm a-Want You" and so on. There aren't too many unknown classics to unearth - but there are certainly some nice cuts to discover. (Sadly there are no sleeve notes to guide the listener.)Still, this is Bread and this is their legacy, and this is a well priced, well presented collection which you will probably keep for life. All the greatest tracks are included on the albums of course, but fans of "It Don't Matter To Me" should note that the album track here is not the same as the famous hit single - it sounds more like a demo version, but is of course the correct selection for the original LP. Annoyingly, this means you can't really throw out your greatest hits CD...It's also worth noting that their last (sometimes called "comeback") album is not included here, so it's not quite the full works. Still, an extremely nice product to have and to keep.

Bread released a total of five albums during their original lifetime, and these are all collected here. After a breakup, they did one additional reunion album, Lost Without Your Love, which was inferior to the original string, and which is not included.There isn't a dud album here, and these can all be considered classics of what has come to be known as the "California sound" or "mellow rock". The songs here are unerringly melodic, often lyrically significant, and impeccably played, sung AND arranged. The hits--and there were many--only tell half the story, as many of the deep album cuts are just as good.If you like any of these albums, you'll want them all. And this package is one stop shopping at a good price. I've docked the package 1 star because the packaging is chintzy: Thin mini-LP sleeves, no inner sleeves, no liner notes. But the music...great stuff.There are no bonus tracks, but outside of a couple on the 2CD Bread compilation that Rhino issued years back, none have been issued (that no one has bothered to create deluxe editions of any of these albums is unfortunate). So if you buy these albums separately, you won't get anything else--except nicer packaging.