Friends — Various Artists
At first we were going back and forth discussing whether or not this CD counted to this little review thing I’m doing. I was a little hesitant to give this CD the same approach that I would a project by a single artist, but then I realized that it is still a piece of art that a group of people had to put together.
This album surprised me by how much I appreciated everything about it as I listened through it a few times.
This album dropped in October of 1995, and tbh, that’s the vibe it gives. The fun pop alternative vibe of the art and music mesh super well. The music has this great flow that is accompanied by these nice little excerpts from different episodes of the show. They were kinda using these sound clips to walk you through the Friends group dynamics and story lines. Relationships, friendships, work, love, hate, all supported by a killer compilation of songs and laugh tracks.
The front cover of this CD is solid. The Friends logo is super iconic. The photo of the group is a cute little look at each characters personality at a glance. The internal typefaces and way everything is kinda floating around the coffee mug looks great. I love the color choices and the nicely they look framing the stills from the show.
Song numero uno of this CD is of course the shows main title song, “I’ll Be There For You” by The Rembrandt’s. Now, this has to be one of the most iconic theme songs, at least top 10, maybe top 5. You can’t help but hit the lil clap part of the song.
The last song on the tape is the full version of the main song, so I decided to allow the second to last song be a supporting representative on the ranking of this category. “Stain Yer Blood” by Paul Westerberg has a great set up and finishes this album with the optimistic high energy that you get from Friends. One of my favorite tracks from the album for sure.
I really was surprised by how much I enjoyed this album. I feel like A-Z, this project is very well put together, with the reality cool inclusion on the shows sound clips and the over all flow. The way they laid it all out, it felt like there was a real story that you can follow even as you just listen to the album.
I was surprised when the score came back as: 7.6
Favorite Song: “I’ll Be There For You” — The Rembrandts
Skip Song: “In My Room” — Grant Lee Buffalo
Stand Out Tracks: “Stain Yer Blood” — Paul Westerberg, “Big Yellow Taxi” — Joni Mitchell
