20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best Of 10CC

10cc were an incredible band who wrote loads of splendidly tuneful/ catchy songs, & with their elaborate production, they were highly innovative as well. Now, I really don't have any hard feelings in general about Universal's "20th Century Masters Collection", but still, this 2002 installment into the series is indeed somewhat needless & lacking. In addition to not including anything past 1978, this disc doesn't even include anything from their UK Records years/ first two albums, meaning that classics such as "The Dean And I" & "The Wall Street Shuffle" are missing--instead, the disc starts off around the time where the band hit it big stateside in 1975. I don't think it was wise to open this collection with "Life Is A Minestrone", which is repetitive & annoyingly pompous, even though I know it's supposed to be humorous. However, things turn around with "Channel Swimmer" which is a rather strange inclusion in the sense that it was not a hit A-side, but actually the b-side to the single for "I'm Not In Love". It's accurate to say that this disc basically covers the period when 10cc were at their most popular in the US--1975-1978--that said, if you're an extremely casual fan, you might be perfectly satisfied with this disc, but the thing is, you really owe it yourself to explore this superb band A LOT more thoroughly than this disc. Certainly there's no arguing with the inclusion of "I'm Not In Love", "Art For Art's Sake", "Good Morning Judge", "The Things We Do For Love", "Dreadlock Holiday", & "For You And I", but indeed they are all available on more thorough collections. This IS a quasi budget-line disc, so to be fair, it's certainly not a terrible introduction to this terrific band, plus also to this disc's credit, the sound quality is really excellent, the liner notes are respectable, & by all means THEY GOT ALL OF THE SONGWRITING CREDITS CORRECT!! Also, they included here the version of "Dreadlock Holiday" that's a tad longer than the album version.