Consumer Guide Album

Ian Hunter: Shades of Ian Hunter: The Ballad of Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople [Columbia, 1979]
Exemplary discophilia. The Mott 45s on side one are all the young stiffs--great album tracks edited down for an AM exposure that was rarely forthcoming, they race along with an almost punky punch on LP. The B sides and miscellaneous on side two are uneven, natch, but worth getting to know (as owners of Greatest Hits have already learned with two of them). Those circumspect enough to have passed up Ian's two solo albums are now rewarded with side three's best-of. And side four excerpts the solo Ian that was never released here to impressive effect. A genuinely obsessive compilation. A-