Sign of the Times: The Best of Queensrÿche

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Queensrÿche

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I have to be honest, it seems like every time I turn around, another Queensryche compilation comes out-- I realize the band's heyday has come and gone, but this odd attempt at the record labels to raid the back catalog for all its worth never made much sense to me, and barring the limited 2CD edition, there's no reason to have purchased this collection in lieu of one of the previous "best of" collections. The latter case, however, stinks of the sort of marketing that may well be exactly why the music business is evolving-- the model of sticking half a dozen unreleased tracks on 2 CDs to force completionists to blow $20+ is at best disgusting. Nonetheless, this is the single CD "Sign of the Times: The Best of Queensryche", and there's an awful lot of unusual selections here for a "best of"-- this could be my personal taste getting in the way (likely), but nonetheless, my commentary:

Queensryche has released nine albums and an EP in the 25 years or so they've been recording-- this collection is a sampling from that. With only 17 tracks to work with, that's a lot of ground to cover, and the decision to include 2 tracks each from their debut EP and LP "The Warning" (including the terminally goofy "Queen of the Reich" and British metal imitation "Warning" to open the collection) rather limits the chance to explore the band's peak period. Further, only two tracks from the band's last three albums are included, and while this may be a justified decision-- that material wasn't exactly fantastic in many cases, 2003's "Tribe", in my assessment the lone bright spot of those three albums after founding guitarist Chris DeGarmo departed, is completely left out.

I could certainly make other arguments about the selection as well-- neither of the tracks from those last three albums are terribly good, the exclusion of "Anybody Listening?" from "Empire" and the selection of "Some People Fly" from "Hear in the Now Frontier" (a decent piece to be sure, but...) in the face of so many great songs ("You", which received significant airplay where I lived at the time and the stunning "Hero" for example) on that record seems unusual.

The real bottom line is I don't feel that this accurately represents the band's catalog all that well, except maybe as a reflection of the nostalgia-induced lifelessness that has effected so many of their lesser-talented contemporaries (and is alluded to in the liner notes of this release) and that perhaps much of their fan base would like to see. After all, this is a band who whenever they perform newer songs in concerts I've been to, half the crowd ignores them. I suppose if you're looking for an introduction to Queensryche, this would be reasonable, but I'd recommend pursuing either "Operation: Mindcrime" (if you come from a metal background) or "Promised Land" (from a more progressive background) and "Empire" first.