lots of orginality here
i wont hold this particular version of TCATS to any real standard because a lot of the songs were b-sides added in later. i can tell you its a shame 'Dear Lover' wasnt put on the original release but oh well.

When i first heard this CD back in 97 it was instantly a classic and main stay and while i have had more fun with other Foo Fighters material its easy to come back to this one but only half heartedly. a lot of the songs just cant hold my attention so much anymore which is ok, so with that said i cant give this CD 5 stars.

The Essential Foo Fighters
Generally speaking, the "Essential " consists of the band's greatest hits, the songs that immediately comes to mind when said band is mention. "The Colour and The Shape" is far from being a greatest hits album, but to me it is THE essential Foo Fighters.

You get the Foo back when, musically, they'd matured the most I've seen any band mature in a span of two albums, and yet, were still fresh enough to not have run out of all the wild ideas that make the Foo Fighters the Foo Fighters.

The fact that my favorite Fighters song "My Hero" is in this album kind of triggers a bias in my judgment of it, but speaking as objectively as I can, this is, to me, the best music the Foo Fighters have given the world.

This is not to mention the great songs I'd never heard before, like "Hey, Johnny Park" and "Up In Arms". There's also the matter of the bonus tracks on this special edition, including a very loud, very reckless track at the end where Dave Grohl screams his throat silly, much reminiscent of a previous band he'd been in. A perfectly loving tribute in pure chaos.

If you're a Foo Fighters fan and don't have this in your collection, I don't see how you could have been a fan in the first place. If you're not a fan but want to try out some of their music, this is an excellent place to start.

Good, but not Great
Foo Fighters is, of course, always a good listen. But I when I bought this I expected more out of it. I guess I just like their newer stuff better.

Old Fans May Be Miffed But You Newbies Will Love It
I didn't know this version of Colour came out until I got here. Kind of sucks for us folks who plunked down $50 or more back in 1997 and 1998 for the original Colour, both X-Files soundtracks, Godzilla soundtrack and a couple of foreign Colour single CD's just to get the B-sides.

Oh wait...A320 from Godzilla isn't on here, nor is Walking After You Remix that's on the X-Files movie soundtrack. Where, oh where are those two great pieces of Foo work from the Colour & Shape era on this 10th year edition?

But, I digress slightly. If you don't have C&S and you've got latter Foo stuff like In Your Honor or Echoes/Silence, you should pick up this 10th anniversary edition. It's the perfect mixture of the first super rocking Grohl solo project (Foo Fighters 1995) and it's sleepy and warm Nothing Left To Lose. Lots of the elements you hear on Echoes or Honor is quite prevelent on Colour & Shape, albeit Colour & Shape is years before the aforementioned.

One thing I do hope this 10 year edition didn't get and that is the loudness treatment because Colour & Shape is one serious hodge-podge of the loud-quiet thing that benefited Foo so well at the time; carrying it on over from Grohl's Nirvana days. Having Doll sound as just loud as February Stars' awesome ending fuzz pedal soup would be a total disservice to the original album. But, given Gil Norton's good production skills on Colour and others, it's possible that he didn't do that. Again, I'm hoping.

The turning point for a post-Nirvana breakout band...
I wish Dave would have produced 3 more of these prior to Echoes, because the in-between was rather dull when not radio singles.