Snakes and Ladders / The Best of Faces

Snakes and Ladders / The Best of Faces was an October 1976 best-of album (the 7th album and 2nd compilation album) by British rock group Faces. While the first released Faces compilation was a simple repackaging of the group's first two LPs as a double album, this US-only release presented the first attempt to compile the popular songs from the group after they had disbanded in 1975. Featuring photography by Tom Wright and unique cover art by guitarist Ronnie Wood, it was only eventually superseded in the US market by the CD compilation Good Boys... When They're Asleep in 1999.

Snakes and Ladders / The Best of Faces
Compilation album by
Faces
Released1976
GenreRock and roll, boogie rock
Length49:05
LabelWarner Bros.
Faces chronology
Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners
(1974)		 Snakes and Ladders / The Best of Faces
(1976)		 Good Boys... When They're Asleep
(1999)

The selections are however heavily biased in favour of Rod Stewart's contribution to the group, with only one track featuring Wood on vocals, and none featuring Ronnie Lane, the group's secondary vocalist and songwriter. Although he had left the band in 1973, Lane was a prominent founder member of the band and sang on and solely composed several tracks on each of the group's four original studio albums, but his songwriting is also under-represented here with his contributions confined to co-credits with Stewart and/or Wood. Lane is also not pictured in the collage of snapshots featured on the cover, while Tetsu Yamauchi - who was only hired for the group's final tour of fall 1975 - does appear in some of them, despite never appearing on any of the studio tracks recorded by the group. Subsequent compilations, however, would go to great lengths to redress this collection's lack of representation of Lane's work - the first of these being a 1977 UK/European-only double-LP retrospective simply titled The Best Of The Faces, which effectively served as this album's expanded and more balanced counterpart in non-US markets.

"Pineapple And The Monkey" would not appear on a Faces compilation again until the release of Faces: The Definitive Rock Collection in 2007. The tracklisting of the original release of this compilation still remains unique however, in that the version of "Had Me A Real Good Time" presented here is the original 1970 single release, which is actually a noticeably different earlier mix to the 1971 'Long Player' album version, rather than just a simple edit of it. This version, which runs at 3.49, has still not been recompiled elsewhere or released on CD as of 2019 as subsequent reissues of this compilation replace it with an edit of the LP version.

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic link
Christgau's Record GuideB+[1]

Track listing
Side one
  1. "Pool Hall Richard" (Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood)
  2. "Cindy Incidentally" (Ian McLagan, Stewart, Wood)
  3. "Ooh La La" (Ronnie Lane, Wood)
  4. "Sweet Lady Mary" (Lane, Stewart, Wood)
  5. "Flying" (Lane, Stewart, Wood)
  6. "Pineapple and the Monkey" (Wood)
Side two
  1. "You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog For a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)" (Kenney Jones, McLagan, Stewart, Wood, Tetsu Yamauchi)
  2. "Had Me a Real Good Time" [single version] (Lane, Stewart, Wood)
  3. "Stay with Me" (Stewart, Wood)
  4. "Miss Judy's Farm" (Stewart, Wood)
  5. "Silicone Grown" (Stewart, Wood)
  6. "Around the Plynth" (Stewart, Wood)

Personnel

Track numbering refers to CD and digital releases of the album.

Additional information

Track numbering refers to CD and digital releases of the album.

  • Tracks 5, 6 and 12 from First Step (1970), and produced by the Faces.
  • Track 4 from Long Player (1971), and produced by the Faces.
  • Tracks 9 and 10 from A Nod Is as Good as a Wink... to a Blind Horse (1971), and produced by the Faces with Glyn Johns.
  • Tracks 2, 3 and 11 from Ooh La La (1973), and produced by Glyn Johns.
  • Track 1 from the 1973 single, and produced by the Faces.
  • Track 7 from the 1975 single, and produced by the Faces.
  • Track 8 from the 1970 single, and produced by the Faces.

References
  1. Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: F". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved 24 February 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.