The Best of Eric Burdon and the Animals 1966-1968 (1992)

This isn't a comprehensive career-overview collection, but rather a focus on the more Eric Burdon dominated period of Animal history. For those wanting "House of the Rising Sun" and other hits from the Alan Price/Mickie Most era, there are about 1000 compilations out there to help you; just make sure they are the original recordings! There is a lot of crap out there, so make sure to sample before you buy anything (chances are somebody out there kindly uploaded something on to Youtube).

This one kicks off with three of the best songs recorded by the band. "Don't Bring Me Down" is generally regarded as the swan song of the "original Animals" era, even though only 3/5 of the original band is featured. However it's track two, "See See Rider", which formally brought the era to a close, though it was released posthumously. Finally there is "Inside Looking Out", which actually predates the other two and is the only track here to feature original drummer John Steel. This track is made all the more amazing by the context of where the band was at when it was recorded. They had finally rid themselves of producer Mickie Most in favor of the far more progressive Tom Wilson. Furthermore, Alan Price was out. Even though Price is a fine musician ("O Lucky Man!" is a classic), there was just too much drama between him and Eric for the band to continue. The result of these two departures is a veritable music explosion, leaving all past endeavors in the dust.

The compilation moves on more or less chronologically from this point. There is one more song from the 1966 period ("Hey Gyp") from the highly underrated Animalism (no "s" - that's a different album). "Help Me Girl" is essentially an Eric Burdon solo number, backed by an orchestra, a fairly common thing for British Invasion singers to do, but not a lot of spark. For fans of the more bluesy/R&B Animals it gets a little too psychedelic, starting with "When I Was Young" and the tracks from the Winds of Change album and its supporting singles. Whoever was in charge of this compilation must have really liked that album because it has more representative tracks than the next three albums put together. The last songs are really the ones you can't get around when covering this era: "Monterey", "Sky Pilot" and "River Deep Mountain High".

Aside from some alternative mixing of a few tracks, I already have all the songs here on other albums, and with a recent remastering of the psych albums, even those I think are now covered. I would recommend this for the Animals novice, but not the completist. The only massive omission here is "Paint It Black", an eerie cover of the Stones' original. There are better tracks from Animalism and some killer B-sides that would have fit well here, but they aren't particularly well-known which defeats the point of the album, so I'll give it a pass for that.

Love Is (Eric Burdon & the Animals, 1968)

Listening to this will make you think "Wow, 'House of the Rising Sun' was a loooong time ago." If you consider 2010 to be a long time ago (as of 2014 of course), then you'd be absolutely right. The wild history of musical transitions over the course of five years that is the basis of the Animals story is something you just don't see anymore in today's music scene. Looking back nearly fifty years, it is quite dramatic how much a band can change in such a short period of time.

Love Is, the final album by the Animals as a continuous recording entity, is the final chapter in a long history of changes. The Animals circa 1964 were just one of numerous bands jockeying for the #3 spot behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the British Invasion. Although they produced a lot of great music, they were mostly known (and still are) for making "House of the Rising Sun" a big hit. It was also the song that would drive Alan Price out of the band after he managed to secure sole credit for the song to the annoyance of the others (they didn't have a Nanker Phelge or McGannahan Skjellyfetti to consolidate group writing credits). Producer Mickie Most would soon follow and the band sound began to shift in a more aggressive direction, but still within the constraints of American R&B covers. Finally by the end of 1966 the band pretty much imploded, with Eric Burdon as the sole remaining original member. In full control, he took the band in a wild new direction with two guitarists (one who doubled on violin) and a lot of crazy psychedelic original compositions. After two albums of this, the novelty wore off (even faster than the first era) and the "new" Animals released a third and final recording, then underwent another lineup shuffle, creating a "new new" Animals, which would record Love Is, their third album of 1968.

Love Is returns to the cover material, but instead of Chuck Berry and Ray Charles, they take on Sly & the Family Stone, Johnny Cash, the Bee Gees, Traffic, and others. They also have a lot of fun with it, throwing in whispered adoration of Tina Turner during "River Deep Mountain High" and tossing in a ridiculously long guitar solo into "Colored Rain". They also turn in one of the most unusual versions of "Ring of Fire" you'll ever experience. The psychedelia of the previous albums is muted or gone for the most part. On many of the songs, keyboard man Zoot Money (aka George Bruno) duets with Eric and all guitar duties are handled by Andy Summers (yes, the same Andy Summers who would enjoy a career in law enforcement a few years down the road with Sting and Stewart Copeland).

The band quickly dissolved following the release of the album. Eric would move on to join War for a couple albums and guitarist-turned-bassist John Weider joined Family while the others (except Andy Summers) would largely drift off into relative obscurity for the 1970's and beyond. Speaking of obscurity, many of the Animals albums were impossible to find on CD during the time I was collecting them, which made for some rather expensive acquisitions. Since that time, pretty much all of their (legit) recordings have been released on CD or some kind of purchasable and re-mastered media (Animalisms, Winds of Change, The Twain Shall Meet, Every One of Us, Love Is), so they are all worth tracking down. If you are craving the Alan Price era stuff, The Complete Animals is a perfect compilation which includes the entire first two albums plus stray singles and oddballs from 1964 and 1965. For some reason the 1966 album Animalism (not plural) is stupid expensive via third party sellers, but there are some nice folks out there who managed to stuff every track from said album into a handy "Bonus Hits" compilation. Happy hunting!