Mott the Hoople

It's hard not to look at Raven's The Golden Age 1969-1997 and think of Shout Factory's Old Records Never Die, a collection that also featured the best of Mott the Hoople and Ian Hunter. Both compilations appeared in 2008 and cover the same ground, but there's a crucial difference: Raven's collection is a single disc and Shout Factory's is a double-CD set, dividing neatly into a disc of Mott and a disc of Ian solo. Raven condenses all this material into a cracking 18-track collection - one that, as you might suspect, heavily overlaps with Old Records; only three songs here aren't on the double (Mott's "One of the Boys," Ian's "Loner," and "Michael Picasso"). There's nothing but terrific music here and it provides a good summary of one of the great cult rock & roll bands, yet The Golden Age only scratches the surface of how much good music either Mott or Hunter released. It's hard not to think that Raven might have been better served by doing two separate compilations, one devoted to Mott and one devoted to Ian, but as a basic overview, The Golden Age provides a lot of bang for the buck. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide