The Thin Man Sings Ballads
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Hammill’s stated intention with The Thin Man Sings Ballads (2002), was to present a casually curious listener with a compilation of accessible songs - the ballads. This album therefore also serves as a perfect companion to The Love Songs as an introduction to Hammill’s gentler output.
The twelve songs on this compilation were picked from nine recent albums. Most of the songs have been remastered, and some have been edited slightly from the original release. |
The selection of songs makes The Thin Man Sings Ballads a good and a coherent album in itself, and makes for pleasant listening - something which may frustrate fans who’d miss the unrestrained power of his more passionately delivered songs. But then again, the long-time fans (who will already own most of these songs on the individual albums anyway), were not the intended audience for this album.
As with The Love Songs, this is nice enough collection of songs, but there are other albums which are far more essential to the established fan.