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The Lone Sharks
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Steve Winwood
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I'm Not There (Original Soundtrack)
Various Artists
Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond
Toby Keith's 35 BIGGEST Hits
Toby Keith
It's A Shame About Ray (Collector's Edition)
The Lemonheads
About a Son
Otis Blue (Collector's Edition)
Otis Redding
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Wood Brothers
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The differences between Volume 1 and Volume 2 in this series is made obvious right from the beginning. While volume one focused mostly on ‘classic’ acts associated with the baby boom era, volume two focuses more intently on the Gen X crowd.
This approach is both a strength and a weakness, depending on each individual act’s ability to convey itself via a live recording that, by definition, strips away any of the visuals. Artists like Nirvana, Neil Young, R.E.M. and Beck come off just fine. Unfortunately, a larger percentage do not. Edgy performances by the Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre and Arrested Development sound fine, but lack a huge part of the appeal that rests in seeing them do what they do. Others fare worse. Hole’s "Doll Parts" is simply awful, while TLC’s performance of "Creep" is lifeless, sorely missing the visual component that makes TLC fun to watch. Because of her overwhelming talent, Mary J. Blige almost overcomes this shortcoming, but it is still hard if not impossible to appreciate her performance for what it is. The same applies to Janet’s "Any Time, Any Place"; it simply doesn’t work well if you can’t see it.
While "Volume 2" is a worthwhile idea, it unintentionally manages to expose many new artists as visual performers who simply cannot convey the net worth of their live performance without the visual component. As a noteworthy aside, both Volume 1 and Volume 2 contain identical liner notes, which only adds to the feeling that more care could have been utilized to make Volume 2 stand on its own.
Grade: 
 
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