Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat / On The Border

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A strange new double album from EMI.  They have pushed a few of these out recently, although the only other one I can remember off the top of my head couples the Human League's patchy "Crash" with their '80s classic "Dare".

This release couples Al's most famous album "Year Of The Cat" with a compilation entitled "On The Border".  Both are excellent albums, full of great songs.  I am hooked and ordered some more Al Stewart product.  See review here.

Of course the "Year Of The Cat" includes the hit title track and also the single "On The Border".  The version of the album here is the remastered one with the bonus tracks "On The Border (Live)", rarity "Belsize Blues" and a short but fascinating audio documentary called "Story Of The Song".  In the latter, Al talks us through the 9 tracks of the original album and tells us stories of his Vietnamese girlfriend and how the songs were written.  It's thoroughly engaging and I can't wait to listen to it again.  OK, it's a bit arty, hippy, Leonard Cohen-ish but I find that refreshing these days.

The other album is "On The Border" - a collection of tracks from the catalogue.  As such there are a number of duplications between the two CDs, and I wonder whether the record company is even aware of this.  There is a live version of "Year Of The Cat" but why it is labelled as "(Single Version)(Live)" is beyond me.  Still, it's a strong album although I find I have little patience with compilations nowadays.

Both albums are available separately, but the beauty of this new release is that you get both for less than the price of either single CD.  At least, I did.  In this sense, this is as much a bargain as the "Original Album Classics" 3CD and 5CD sets which are so popular these days. 

It's the "Year Of The Cat"...

or "On The Border"!

The downside with this double is the poor packaging.  The insert "booklet" can be reversed so that you can display the album as either "Year Of The Cat" or "On The Border", which is quite amusing in a way.  However, the drawback with this cheapo packaging is that you get no lyrics, songwriting credits, musician details, production information or even track timings.  In this sense, the package offers little incentive over an illegal download.  So an EMI own goal to a certain extent, I feel.