Mott the Hoople
The Best of Mott the Hoople

(Columbia/Legacy/Sony)

First Appeared at The Music Box, May 2003, Volume 10, #5

Written by John Metzger

The Best of Mott the Hoople is little more than a remastered version of the previously available Greatest Hits, albeit with two bonus cuts — a superb reading of Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane and the edgy rocker One of the Boys. Nevertheless, this compilation serves its purpose well, offering a succinct overview of Mott the Hoople’s career, which should fill most people’s appetite for the band. (For those seeking more, both the 1993 package The Ballad of Mott [A Retrospective] or the 1998 Columbia Records-produced box set All the Young Dudes delve a little deeper).

Despite its brash beginnings with a Kinks-meets-Stones-meets-Dylan sound, Mott the Hoople had little success outside its native England. By 1972, the band had called it quits, which prompted David Bowie to offer to write and produce an album for the group that was based around his song Suffragette City. The members of Mott the Hoople rejected the idea, but Bowie tried again, this time suggesting a new song titled All the Young Dudes. The rest, as they say, is history. The song cracked the Top 40 in the U.S. and raced to #3 on the British charts, and Mott the Hoople had fully resurrected its career.

Although All the Young Dudes remains Mott the Hoople’s most recognizable song, the band scored tremendous success with a trilogy of albums released between 1972 and 1974, and not surprisingly, all of the tracks on The Best of Mott the Hoople come from this era. All the Way from Memphis glistened with glam-soul gusto; the soaring, anthemic Hymn for the Dudes bridged the gap between Dylan and Bowie; and Ballad of Mott the Hoople crossed Dylan with Pink Floyd in a stirring lament for rock ’n‘ roll. Mott the Hoople may not have survived for very long, but the music that it made in its heyday will certainly last forever.

The Best of Mott the Hoople is available from Amazon.com.
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The Ballad of Mott is available from Amazon.com.
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Ratings

1 Star:   Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!

Copyright © 2003 The Music Box