This oft-celebrated album comes off as more of a vanity project to these ears. At this point, the group was essentially a studio project, anyway. Mixing the group's material with comedian Stanley Unwin's monologues (the "Happiness Stan" story on the second side) seemed excessive enough on its' own, but even the music itself felt jittery, unfocused, and insulated from the sounds cut on the first two albums. Odgens', in this respect, stands apart from the rest of the Small Faces catalog.

You might find this under the title Small Faces which can cause some confusion, and to add to it, a competing album called From The Beginning (with overlapping tracks) was released almost simultaneously as the group had switched management thanks to earlier bad business dealings. Whatever the case, the unbridled Mod/garage enthusiasm that was the debut gives way to a stunning hybrid of clear-vision R&B-meets-psychedelic pop on this record, which plays out over the course of 14 short, vignette-style tracks. Nothing ever overstays its welcome, and I'm fairly sure nothing - other than a chorus or two - gets repeated twice. But the group peaks right in the middle of the hippie era, with one of the surest statements ever made - that great pop/soul hooks and grooves married to beautiful harmonies will always prevail. Even on experimental tracks like "Green Circles" and "Eddie's Dreaming" they never lose their sense of humor or their overall vision. Re-issues often include varying bonus tracks featuring famous singles around the same time like "Here Come the Nice" and "Itchycoo Park". Ironically, it was when the group went full-bore psychedelic, on their next album Odgen's Nut Gone Flake, when they truly began to lose direction.

Doomed to second-league status thanks to events out of their control, in reality, the Small Faces were an immensely important group in their short lifetime, with everyone (except for orginal Face Jimmy Winston) moving onto bigger and better gigs. An innumerable amount of lead singers owe a huge debt to Steve Marriott, while the band's upbeat garage rock crossed-with R&B style has had countless imitators, and very few that matched up with the original item. Their debut album is often pooh-poohed by snooty critics as a second-rate Mod copy-cat document, but that misses the point. The key selling point is unadulterated energy, as typified by their rowdy interpretation of Muddy Waters' "You Need Loving". If this sounds familiar to you, it's because Led Zeppelin directly nicked it for their huge hit "Whole Lotta Love". There's nothing second-rate about this album, or subsequent releases.

This is a curious solo release from West, post-Mountain, a mix of hard rockers and soulful belters where he is found often practically in duet mode with Italian soul singer Dana Valery. I'm not extremely fond of this, but hardcore fans of West's career might appreciate the different look he throws out here.

This was something that seemed to be a much bigger deal at the time than it is now, but when David Lee Roth split from Van Halen to his own solo career, at least in the mainstream-MTV-music world, shock waves were definitely made. The year before, Dave had released his EP Crazy from the Heat, which featured the glossy videos for "California Girls" and "Just A Gigolo" - plus, there was a rumored movie deal in the works (which eventually fell through) - which meant the competitive stakes between him and his old bandmates were sky high. Dave's response was to get together a crack lineup (Stevie Vai, Billy Sheehan, and Gregg Bissonette) and record Eat 'Em and Smile, a high-octane mix of cutting rockers and torch standards - in other words, not too far removed from his Van Halen days. The interplay between Roth and Vai is different than the relationship between him and Eddie Van Halen; Vai feeds more easily into Roth's slapstick impulses, and overall, he comes off as part of Dave's vast variety show - something you could never accuse Eddie of falling into. But the approach works, especially on the opening "Yankee Rose", which may very well be the funniest song Van Halen never wrote (I especially dig the talking guitar intro), and on big, gusto-filled numbers like the cover of "Tobacco Road" and "Goin' Crazy!".