Consumer Guide Album

The Move: The Best of the Move [A&M, 1974]
I could trot out the complaint that this double-LP would make a good single, but why bother? Comprising the band's 1967 U.K. debut LP and a lot of uncollected forty-fives, with two sets of notes and detailed discographical data, this is a labor of love that lists at only a buck over the one-record price. Anyway, they wouldn't pick the same cuts I would: my fave is "Wave Your Flag and Stop the Train," which they regard as a Monkees imitation--not a very exact one, I'd say, but close enough to the pop at which they supposedly excelled. I love rock and roll--I just want it to be better. Bands like the Move feel hemmed in by rock and roll--they want it to be different, or more. When they succeed, as the Move finally did, it's often better too. But usually it's less. B