I just wanted to say i love both albums"Music in a Dolls House" and "Family Entertainment"both excellent albums,i have just listened to the third album"A Song For Me"which on the whole i enjoyed but in my humble opnion not as good as those first 2 albums..........What would you recommend next for my listening pleasure aas ive heard nothing after "A song for Me",any good comps that i should try ,i know theres a box set out at the mo at a ludicrous price for my wallet anyway!Also i wanted to know have Familys first 2 albums ever been reissued from the master tapes and remastered?I have 2 cds released by a label Pucka,but i cant see if theyre from master tapes or not....i take it the Family box set,the albums are all remastered and taken from master tapes??Sorry for all the questions!!!Just interested!!Thank you,Stuart

Stuart - re the box set; 'Music In A Doll's House' and 'Family Entertainment'don't say they are remastered, but all other albums and discs in the set are listed as 're-mastered from original tapes 2012'.

I like Music In A Doll's House, but it's the least consistant album they ever did I think. Family Entertainment really puts it in the shade for my money. I find all their albums immensely worthwhile though.

Is the box set worth the mula? Yes, in my opinion. The sound is great, the albums are all in card gatefold sleeves Plus as a little extra there's 3 x CD repros of original singles as well. The only part of the box you don't really need is the double CD of backing / rehersal tapes. It doesn't add anything as far as I'm concerned, though I guess it has archival merit for hard core fans.

Tha hard back book is both a great read of the band's history and a beautiful presentation of a band, let's face it, who were hardly photogenic! The faux issue of Sounds newspaper full of period press cuttings is great too.

I would advise you to check out some their other albums on Spotify or Youtube to see what you think. If you like 'em enough, save up for the box set, it's worth it.

PM

Stuart, the first two Family albums are great - by far the best things that the band ever did. After that, everything is very patchy. There are some great individual tracks ('My Friend The Sun', 'Burlesque', 'Sweet Desiree', 'In My Own Time'), but you have to wade through an awful lot of turgid stuff to get to the occasional gem. A bit like Spooky Tooth, Family peaked on their first two albums. Approach everything after that with caution!

I'd put "Bandstand" up pretty high, though. There's nothing "psych" about it, but I like it a lot and listen to it as much as the first two. "A Song for Me" and "Anyway" I listen to less. I think the first is the best by a slight margin. The only Family album I really found pretty bad was the "It's Only A Move" album, which is quite dull. "Bandstand" is one of the essential three, in my opinion.

I think their only other album I really love is Fearless, different from the others but still well above average

I forgot about that one. Yeah, that has a couple of things on there I liked and it's not a bad record. I might have to give that a spin soon!

Roger Chapman's straining, gravelly voice on the track Blind from Fearless gets me every time. Love it.

I agree with you about Family, but for me Spooky Tooth peaked when they met Pierre Henry with Ceremony - like Jesus Christ Superstar's satanic twin with added disturbing noises.

Fearless has some good songs. Sort of "folkier" sound, in a way, by which i mean i notice acoustic guitar more that electric, and more keyboards, horns or other stuff than scraming guitar. It's actually "jazzy" in a good way. It is kind of a weird album as noted above, but interesting. It stumbles around a bit but I am enjoying it. One song sounds like they whirled around a plastic tube until it made a sound.