Artist: Third Eye Blind
Album: Third Eye Blind A Collection (The Best of)
Label: Rhino/Wea
Tracks: 19
Reviewer: Conrad the Barbarian

"Best of" albums are always weird because half the time you're just wondering if the label is trying to squeeze water out of a dried up sponge.  Regardless of the reasons of this release what you basically get is a few remastered tracks of songs you might already have. 

Since this is a comp of a bunch of records, the only thing sonically you can really comment on is the mastering.  And the mastering on this record pleases me.  It of course has the super produced feel - it's mega compressed.  Something that really popped out to me is they took care to get more separation between the left and right channels.  I like that.  And even though it's ultimately a pop record, the vocals sit nicely in the pocket of the band.  Someone certainly likes the kick drum. It doesn't sound like a radio rock record – where all you hear is vocals.  I can actually hear the guitars.  The album sounds rich, full and bright. 

Listening to this album you realize that their songs had plenty of pop gimmicks that for some reason they were able to pull off.  I mean singing "Doot, doot, doot"?  C'mon, total gimmick.  And doing all that talking/semi-singing stuff at the end of songs?  Gimmick.  But that's who they were.  They were pop.  And the songs were catchy.  So it worked. 

Here's a total tangent but the very first time I heard this band was Semi-Charmed life (Doot, doot, doot), and I thought it was the Spin Doctors.  Remember that band with all them homeless people? 

Now this Best-of album goes chronologically through their albums.  While this might seem like a good idea, it's only a good idea for a band like U2 who has been around forever and has hits off of every record.  For 3EB this is a bad idea because it shows off that they were the flavor of the month.  The first record was all hits. The second record had a few hits and the albums after that - you'll be like, "Uh, I've never heard this song before."  And if you've heard those songs before, which certainly weren't played on the radio, then that means you bought the record so you don't need to get this best-of album.

This record basically can be picked up by people who've lost their 3EB records, or super-fans who want nice new remastered versions of the best 3EB songs, or people who have heard just a couple of 3EB songs and would like to hear their best songs without buying a bunch of albums.