The Best We Could Find

Description

The Best We Could Find, sub-titled +3 That Never Escaped, is a compilation album by the American singer, songwriter, and producer Steve Taylor, released on Sparrow Records in 1988, distributed by Word. Includes three previously unreleased songs: “Under The Blood”, “Down Under”, and “Bouquet.” All songs digitally remastered by Doug Sax at Mastering Labs in Los Angeles, California.

Sometimes it takes one of those “Best Of” just-in-time-for-Christmas releases to remind us just how significant a contribution an artist has made to music over the years.

The Best We Could Find, a compilation of Steve Taylor’s albums on Sparrow records, does just that for the artist that brought alternative music into the Christian mainstream.

Not only does The Best We Could Find chronicle the finest musical offerings of an outstanding artist, it is the sound of doors opening for Christian punk, new-wave and progressive artists who used I Want to be a Clone, Taylor’s 1982 six-song debut, as an entre to larger exposure.

That all six tracks of that first groundbreaking EP find their way on to the CD version of this product, makes it the format of choice for Taylor collectors. Welcome to the ’90s.

Other highlights include many of the obvious tracks: the tender tunes «Hero» and «To Forgive» and rock/new wave classic «This Disco (Used to be a Cute Cathedral)», «Meltdown (At Madame Tussaud’s)», «Guilty by Association» and «On the Fritz».

Three new tracks make The Best We Could Find desirable for those who have all the Taylor albums, although only one is necessary. «Under the Blood», an angry declaration against America’s cheap grace, provides a sort of theological summation of Taylor’s often humorous slant on the socio/spiritual foibles of popular and Christian culture.

The exclusion of the live rendering of «We Don’t Need No Colour Code» being the one miscalculation, The Best We Could Find is indeed the best of Steve Taylor, a personality and talent that has given much to modern Christian music. All of which is to answer a question posed in the final track, «I Just Wanna Know». Yes, we were always catching what he had to say. [Brian Quincy Newcomb, CCM, December 1988]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-best-we-could-find/716386876)

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Under The Blood” – 3:40
A2. “Down Under” – 3:43
A3. “Meltdown (At Madame Tussaud’s)” – 4:26
A4. “To Forgive” – 3:52
A5. “I Want To Be A Clone” – 2:31
A6. “Hero” – 3:41

Side Two
B1. “Bouquet” – 3:50
B2. “This Disco (Used To Be A Cute Cathedral)” – 5:15
B3. “Sin For A Season” – 4:14
B4. “Guilty By Association” – 3:21
B5. “On The Fritz” – 3:56
B6. “Whatever Happened To Sin?” – 3:07
B7. “I Just Wanna Know” – 4:40

Note: Simultaneously released on cassette, 12-inch vinyl LP, and CD by Sparrow Records. The CD version includes 17 tracks (the four remaining tracks from the 1983 EP, I Want to Be a Clone), while the cassette and vinyl versions features 13 songs only. “This Disco (Used To Be A Cute Cathedral)” is the version from Transatlantic Remixes.

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