So I just finished the Vol 2 of the singles and they almost all are quite fantastic. Of course some definite highlights and weaker tracks but pretty consistent throughout. It appears as though this exercise has re-invigorated the band and allowed them to produce some of their best songs (although I actually like every album they released)at a high energy level. There are several that I feel would have been huge hits if they were released at Ash's heyday when they were actually being played on the radio.

I wonder how successful this excercise has been since they were the first band to really try something like this. If I had to guess I would say it probably didn't yield huge financial awards but who knows. I don't condone anything that encourages killing the album format as I believe the album to be the ultimate musical statement and frankly I thought it was a little lazy of Ash to say they were going to ditch the album because they weren't very good at making one cohesive. It's much easier to just release a bunch of songs and not have them flow together but I think the price they paid is that many of these really good songs will go un-noticed and people will still refer to the 1977/Free all angels era as being the heyday when the tracks here are easily as good. Any thoughts?