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Chronicles

Steve Winwood - Chronicles Audio CD

A fair review of the Steve Winwood "Chronicles" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Steve Winwood reviews here, or go back to the Steve Winwood tabs.

Band: Steve Winwood
Title: Chronicles
Rating:

Release Date: 2008-03-25
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Wake Me up on Judgement Day 2: While You See a Chance 3: Vacant Chair 4: Help Me Angel 5: My Love's Leavin' 6: Valerie 7: Arc of a Diver 8: Higher Love 9: Spanish Dancer 10: Talking Back to the Night

Yes it's another Steve Winwood album. heheh
Like many artist's this disc has some tracks form other Cd's. Yea another Steve Winwood album. But as always there's always that 1 or 2 songs that can only be found on this Cd. Tracks (3) Vacant chair,(4) Help me angel,(6) Valerie and (10) Talking back the night are remixes. This has only 10 tracks but each track runs about 5 minutes plus. Track 6 Valerie is one of the reasons I snagged this disc. I don't remember any other version. I'm not a big fan of remixing but sometimes things can turn out better the 2nd or 3rd time. That's a quote from Robert Palmer also found on the Island label. .

Valerie
A must have for real listeners. Great music, great rhythm, excellent music. Not to hard and not to soft. .

"Say A Prayer For The Stranger"
I thought it was Peter Gabriel singing, (since it has a similar sort of vibe as the Genesis song "It"). I'd heard "Higher Love" on the radio before, and the remix of "Valerie" that was a hit a few years back, but what made me get this album was hearing "While You See Chance". Haha!

Though it doesn't seem to be a definitive best of, according to some of the reviews here, there are still some top tracks on here that I really enjoy. Steve has got a strong voice and has a great taste in synthesizer and keyboard tones, plus the songs have some crisp, evocative production. Some of his songs have a spiritual streak too (like "Higher Love", "Wake Me Up on Judgement Day" and "Help Me Angel"), which is interesting.

A couple of the tracks ("Help Me Angel", "Valerie" and "Talking Back To the Night") are remixed by producer Tom Lord Alge, who more recently mixed Evermore's album "Real Life". Not having heard the original Steve Winwood solo albums, I can only guess what he's done (added a bit of drum machine here and there, I think), but the tracks are catchy enough.

The booklet contains a brief history of Steve's recording career, with a couple of quotes from Steve himself. Doesn't say who the booklet is written by, which would have been nice to know.

Gets the job done, but leaves much to be desired
" That album came four years after "Talking Back To The Night", a collection of ingenious musical conceptions that unfortunately came up a bit short in execution, given their potential. Steve Winwood's solo career rocketed into the stratosphere following 1986's Grammy darling, "Back in the High Life. This was preceded by "Arc of a Diver" and the self-titled "Steve Winwood", the former going to #3 on the charts, but the latter a much under-appreciated gem of a solo debut.

So we can clearly see that perhaps Steve and his record producers noticed that there were many new listeners who came in for "Back in the High Life" who were not familiar with his first three albums, and they decided to pick tracks from these, give some them a modern remix, and blend them with selections from "High Life" into a hopefully irresistible package.

Sounds like a great idea in execution, and commercially it clearly was a wise move, but 21 years later, this album leaves us wanting more.

For starters, the few remixes here, with the exception of "Valerie", are inferior to the originals. Winwood's ambitious early techno arrangements of "Talking Back to the Night" and "Help Me Angel" are substituted for generic 80s rock beats. If you don't believe me, listen to the original version of "Night" from 1982 and then the remix here and tell me which is more musicially effective. It would have been nice if they attempted to do edgier or more creative remixes of these that improved upon the original rather than an attempt at wider appeal.

The exception to the unnecessary remixes is "Valerie", with its improved reverb and delightly soaring percussion. It vastly improves upon the quaint original, a strong track on its own but having a bit too much of an "unfinished demo" feel. The new mix soared to #7 on the Top 40, and is arguably Winwood's most enduring and recognizable song from the 80s, introduced to a new generation with Eric Prydz's 2004 "Call on Me" remix.

In addition to the remix issue, there's also the problem, as other reviewers have pointed out, that this is far from a Greatest Hits album. In all fairness, this may not have been what they were going for, perhaps picking out what they felt had potential for a successful second chance. However, there are so many things left out, perhaps due to the length limitations of a CD at the time, and this leaves us listeners begging for a true greatest hits album or solo anthology, which hopefully is not too far off in the future.

"Chronicles" certainly brought in a lot of listeners to Winwood's slightly older output, and kept his solo career in the spotlight. But in retrospect, the execution comes off a bit bland and overly safe in most places, especially since we heard all this before, and it's not a complete "greatest hits" package. That, coupled with the fact the remixes were almost entirely better in their original versions, the only reason to pick up this album is the venerable "Valerie" do-over, or if you want to see where a new generation of Winwood fans fell in love with him all over again.
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Disappointing
When I say a compilation is disappointing, that means it's pretty bad, because I'm quite lenient and always try to find the good in compilations, but there is very little good to say about this one. This Steve Winwood compilation is quite disappointing, to say the least. SO many key songs are missing and it just seems inexcusable. There are too many songs missing to even list. Sure, there are a few of his good songs here, but many are second-rate, filler songs. The best song on here is "Higher Love", a few others aren't bad, but not that great and then some are just not his best at all. I really wish they would come up with a MUCH better single-disc Steve Winwood compilation and show the true talent of this man.

You can see a complete list of all Steve Winwood discography, or go back to the Steve Winwood tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.