ARTIST: Bachman Turner Overdrive

TITLE: Gold

YEAR RELEASED: Compilation

CHART ACTION:  None

SINGLES (Charting): Blue Collar (#68 US), Let It Ride (#23 US), Takin’ Care of Business (#12 US), You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (#1 US, #2 UK), Roll On Down the Highway (#14 US, #22 UK), Hey You (#21 US), Take It Like a Man (#33 US), Lookin’ Out for #1 (65 US), Gimme Your Money Please (#70 US), Heartaches (#60 US)

OTHER SONGS YOU MAY KNOW: If you do, you don’t need this.

LINEUP: Randy Bachman, Fred Turner, Robbie Bachman. Tim Bachman was there at first, then Blair Thornton replaced him. Randy left in 1977 and Jim Clench replaced him. Then the reunions…Oh, they got Little Richard to play on their fifth album.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT: Generous (to say the least) compilation of Canada’s meat-and-potatoes 70’s rock band.

SOME WORDS, PHRASES AND CLAUSES ABOUT THIS RECORD: I always go for comps with too many songs (knowing I can exile them) than not enough, and I tell you what, this comp for Bachman Turner Overdive is…too much.

For one, they have six tracks from three of their first four albums (the first, meh). That’s 2/3 of the tracks from those records They give as much weight to their later albums where they had no inspiration than their earlier ones, where Randy at least tried a bit. The songs also had a tendency to overstay their welcome. (Jam on, BTO). And then they slow it down and try to be jazzy. That’s not foolin’ anyone, you know.

Maybe you should just grab their first four records and weed out the bad cuts? A compilation of a band like this is supposed to do that. But it’s got some worthy tracks not on the smaller compilations. Thank goodness for exile.

NOTES & MINUTIAE: In Canada, they had seven top 10 singles. But even there, their last few records tanked.

IS THERE A DELUXE VERSION: If it was any more deluxe it would just be the damn albums.

GRADE B-:  A nice 16-to-20 track anthology would have done, you guys. I kept 19 out of 35 (I’m generous too).