Rockers

Nice clean vinyl with a smart high gloss cover.

When a collection is made when a group is still on the top (or just over it), the lack of perspective is often obvious. But in this case, the reason for the inadequate choices is more likely to be commercial or legal. Because when Decca releases a Thin Lizzy collection, there are only three albums to choose from. And the first, Thin Lizzy, holds few enjoyable songs. So no songs from there, which is good for the quality of the record, but bad from a chronological aspect. And it only leaves the compiler with two records: Shades of a Blue Orphanage and Vagabonds of the Western World. These may not be Thin Lizzy's most interesting ones, and having two songs from the second and five from the third makes out for a thick collection, even though the choice of songs is flawless. The solution to this is, of course, to add rare tracks and singles. The full-length version of "Whiskey in the Jar," including a longer guitar solo; another version of "Sarah," completed by Lynott in 1979; and the singles "Little Darling" and "Sitamoia" make the album worth buying. But only for fans who are burning to hear what it sounds like when Downey for once wrote a song or what "Sarah" could have sounded like. Those who are not huge Lizzy fans will be better off buying a more wide-spanning collection. And advertising "The Rocker" as a full-length version is only silly, since it is the same version as found on Vagabonds of the Western World, even if the U.S. single happens to be shortened.

Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. Two of the founding members, drummer Brian Downey and bass guitarist and vocalist Phil Lynott, met while still in school. Lynott assumed the role of frontman and led them throughout their recording career of twelve studio albums. Thin Lizzy's most successful songs, "Whiskey in the Jar", "Jailbreak" and "The Boys Are Back in Town", were all major international hits which are still played regularly on hard rock and classic rock radio stations. After Lynott's death in 1986, various incarnations of the band have emerged over the years based initially around guitarists Scott Gorham and John Sykes, though Sykes left the band in 2009. Gorham later continued with a new line-up including Downey.

Lynott, Thin Lizzy's de facto leader, was composer or co-composer of almost all of the band's songs, and the first black Irishman to achieve commercial success in the field of rock music. Thin Lizzy boasted some of the most critically acclaimed guitarists throughout their history, with Downey and Lynott as the rhythm section, on the drums and bass guitar. As well as being multiracial, the band drew their members not only from both sides of the Irish border but also from both the Catholic and Protestant communities during The Troubles. Their music reflects a wide range of influences, including blues, soul music, psychedelic rock, and traditional Irish folk music, but is generally classified as hard rock or sometimes heavy metal. Rolling Stone magazine describes the band as distinctly hard rock, "far apart from the braying mid-70s metal pack".^[1]