The Best That is
Irish
Celtic Collections CCCD 650; 2 CDds; 112 minutes;
2003
This album’s clumsy title
thoroughly gives the game away. There have been so many similar compilations that
it seems the range of possible titles has been exhausted. Moreover, the
rounding up of the usual suspects, together with the use of decidedly cheap
IMM-style graphics (see below) suggests that this particular label, Celtic Collections,
doesn’t really care about how it promotes its back catalogue. 
A more appropriate title would be ‘The Sound of a Thousand
Barrels’ Bottoms Being Scraped’ and, while that might interest some of the more
arcane fans of ‘World Music’ (and those two blokes in Australia who spend all
their spare time playing barbed wire fences with fiddle bows), it’s hardly
likely to shift copies from the racks of the megastores or service stations.
Furthermore, describing this
hotchpotch of the over-compiled, hackneyed and, frankly, sheer rubbish as the
‘best’ of anything seriously threatens the integrity of the Trades Descriptions
Act (unless, of course, it was called ‘The Best of the Over-Compiled,
Hackneyed, and, Frankly, Sheer Rubbish’).
Celtic Collections is one of those
idiosyncratically Irish labels which has formed its catalogue from previous
labels’ rosters while specialising in that kind of sub-Clannad pseudo-ethereal
form of, well, idiosyncratically Irish kind of music, which goes down well in
the lounges of extravagantly priced hotels in Dublin and Killarney. So, for
your hard-earned readies, you get the bland and very well-known end of the
ballad side of the market (Jim McCann, Paddy Reilly, The Fureys & Davey
Arthur – and, yes, Paddy does sing The Fields of Athenry), mixed with its
rougher edge (The Dubliners and The Wolfe Tones who are oddly listed as ‘The
Wolfetones’ here), alongside Derry’s ‘Mister Music’, Phil Coulter, and a loose
bag of the ether-merchants (Rua, Meav, Aoife and Lisa – it seems essential that
none of the last three has a second name, though the Aoife in question is Ní
Fhearraigh from Gweedore and Rua is a duo).
The four exceptions are Clannad (the massively
over-compiled Theme from ‘Harry’s Game’, Horslips, Altan (The Cat That Ate the Candle/Over the
Water to Bessie from their 1987 self-titled album) and, er, the Dublin
Welsh Male Voice Choir. None of which would be sufficient to entice the
interest of traditional music fans of, for that matter, lovers of Welsh Choirs
based in Dublin.
The brief liner carries absolutely
no information other than the track listings, details of composers and
arrangers, and the record company’s own address. So all that’s of interest lies
in attempting to spot all the people in the hideous photomontages. Of course, Irish
Music magazine has pioneered these to regular limited effect, but it’s
doubtful whether even its designers would stoop so low as to produce this
turgid mess (unless, perhaps, one of them was moonlighting).
Take a glance at the tray liner
reproduced above. Paddy Reilly looks distinctly fed up with the whole thing
while Phil Coulter is as insouciant as ever (although, on reflection, Paddy
seems as though he’d like to stick one on Coulter!). In between, one of
Clannad’s Ó Dúgain twins has lost the upper half of his head while, to the
band’s lower left, Mairéad has lost the rest of Altan. Meanwhile, Lisa (or is
it Maev or even half of Rua?) has decided to take a kip on top of The Fureys
& Davey Arthur while Ronnie Drew (in full Rasputin mode) has decided to use
the hair of one of The Wolfe Tones as a new moustache. Meanwhile, Maev (or is
it Lisa or even the other half of Rua?) looks down her nose at those scruffy
Horslips lads while, to her far right, Jim McCann prepares to have the rest of
The Wolfe Tones for lunch. And, I hear you asking, where’s the Dublin Welsh
Male Voice Choir?
Finally, it’s worth noting that,
even if you’re still intent on adding this album to the other fifty you already
have containing The Green Fields of France, while the first CD comes in
at a little over an hour, the second lasts a mere forty-eight minutes.
Do yourself a favour and resist
any temptation to augment the coffers of Celtic Collections.
This is an original piece by Geoff Wallis who is becoming heartily sick of being sent such dross to review.
If you really do want to know more about Celtic Connections and its shockingly bad catalogue, visit www.celticcollections.com. Alternatively, if you’d just like to telephone the label and vent your spleen regarding its products, its number is '00 353 1 708 8480 (and remember to reverse the charges).