Various Artists - The World's Best Ever Beer Songs- 10th Anniversary (Album)
The World’s Best Ever Beer Songshas turned 10. Happy birthday. So if you’re unsure what present to get a compilation of “pub anthems” perhaps it is best to simply sit back, get plastered and celebrate.
The current collection combines sixty tracks on three discs and is a “blokes” record. More specifically, it is one your dad will enjoy (because mine was certainly impressed with the track listing). However, you can judge for yourself, as the songs seem to be mainly lifted from a Triple M playlist with some cheesy Countdown songs thrown in for good measure.
Personally, I’m a little surprised that they’ve made it ten years. Especially when you consider that there have also been compilations from VB and Jim Beam; plus just about every other combination of tunes you can imagine. It’s just too bad that they haven’t come up with "The Best Ever Songs” for when you’re under the influence of other things. I nominate ecstasy or acid because I reckon that would make for a very interesting listening experience, indeed.
The set kicks of with some sweet Americana apple pie in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama and this is subsequently joined by Don McLean’s American Pie. Later, both Choirboys and Rose Tatoo offer some quintessential Aussie Pub Rock with Run To Paradise and Bad Boy For Love, respectively.
Also included are your expected big rock anthems: Kiss’ Rock And Roll All Nite, Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild and George Thorogood & The Destroyers’ Bad To The Bone. These are your typical “bad boy” songs for a generation who previously proclaimed that they “want to die before I get old,” so who knows what shenanigans they’ll now get up to?
There are also two Aussie anthems courtesy of Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh and The Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again. Moreover, there are three token chick songs. Averaging at one per disc these include: Boys In Town by Divinyls, Call Me by Blondie and Barracuda by Heart.
While disc one is made up of clichéd dirty rock guitars turned up to eleven, the second disc is a little more varied. Steve Earle’s epic Copperhead Road leads the pack and is supported by Devo cracking whips and the Talking Heads traveling a Road To Nowhere, which seems to involve a gospel choir lounging on a beach. Some excellent late sixties/early seventies hits round out the disc with Deep Purple, Van Morrison and The Easybeats each performing their “magnum opus.”
The final record includes nods to commercial rock music (that best found in jeans advertisements) with Reef’s Place Your Hands and Violent Femmes’ Blister In The Sun. The former is part of the newer crop of acts that also include The Living End and Jet amongst the mature party. Finally, the encore is a four-in-a-row country hoedown whose bill includes: Johnny Cash, John Denver, Kenny Rogers and Slim Dusty.
The World’s Best Ever Beer Songs 10th Anniversary takes in a number of different genres that will no doubt assist the listener as they travel away from sobriety to a more sated state. You can almost see the Grumpy Old Men in denim dancing along to these songs and you have the choice of joining them on this aural trip down memory lane. At the very least you can hope the oldies will buy you a round or two for your trouble.
