Mr. Big "Big, Bigger, Biggest" East West 1997

Remember the two factions of the Mr. Big audience? I'll remind you: rockers and wusses. This is
aimed squarely at the wuss faction. With just five hard rockers, this is purely aimed to cash
in on the Adult Contemporary listeners who've heard "To Be With You", "Just Take My Heart",
and "Wild World". Not that there's anything wrong with these tracks, but Mr. Big's die-hard fan
base are the rock fans. Those people would be better served by any of the band's plethora of live
albums. Unfortunately, most of those were limited editions that now fetch alarmingly high prices,
and none were very long or had all the best songs. Mr. Big were an electrifying and extremely
tight live band though. Their farewell album, "In Japan" captures them live and is still readily
available, but it features Richie Kotzen on guitar. He's a great guitarist and singer and all
that, but most fans will agree that Paul Gilbert was THE guitarist in Mr. Big.
Back to Big Bigger Biggest. Yeah, all the ballads and mid-tempo tracks you'd expect are present.
It also saves you buying the forgettable "Hey Man", because the two best tracks from that CD are
included. The originality and melody of "Green-Tinted Sixties' Mind", along with it's unforget-
table opening guitar lick, mark it out as a classic, and if your mum asks you to get this for
her so she can have "To Be With You", the technical ferocity of "Colorado Bulldog" and "Rock &
Roll Over" will knock her for six. 
Including new songs on a best-of is a pretty tacky way of getting your fans to shell out a lot
of money for not much, but Mr. Big include a generous four new songs, which would be Paul 
Gilbert's last recordings with the band. Acoustic balladry, unsurprisingly, is what you get for
the first three, but the power and emotion of "Stay Together", in spite of its nonsensical lyric,
mean that the last song on the original line-up's last CD is the kind of rocker that Mr. Big
should be remembered for.

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