Guilty- 30 Years of Randy Newman

Harps & Angels Randy Newman's first studio album of all new material in nearly a decade is, by turns, hilarious, poignant and scathingly satirical. Harps and Angels often has an easy going Crescent City feel, with Newman on piano fronting a small combo and revealing, as Rolling Stone put it aft...	The Best of Randy Newman The songwriting genius' multi-label highlights on one CD! The first of its kind, this unique collection gathers 21 tracks released between 1968 and 1999, including Newman's greatest hits, album cuts, and soundtrack classics.	The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1 Although he's now best known as the curly haired Prince of Pixar (he's written hit songs for a number of animated blockbusters, including Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life, Randy Newman began his career as a misanthropic satirist and thwarted romantic. It's this version of Newman who ...	Good Old Boys (Bonus CD) (Dlx) Randy Newman's 1974 concept album explores the modern contradictions and early-20th-century history of the Deep South with his bracing mix of irony, affection, and empathy for twisted psyches and hungry, venal dreams. What sounds like Southern gothic material is a virtuosic balan...	Bad Love More than a decade passed between song collections from Randy Newman, a drought that's finally ended with Bad Love, an album the self-critical songsmith ranks with his best. Age certainly hasn't mellowed the satirical composer, who targets Western imperialists, shameful lechers, ...
Sail Away Odd man out in California's early-'70s panoply of singer-songwriters, Randy Newman didn't play guitar, refused to confess specific personal dreams and sins, and sidestepped the countercultural trinity of sex, rebellion, and self. Newman dared to be a neoclassical pop survivor, na...	Mudcrutch "I just finished a record with Mudcrutch, my old band before the Heartbreakers. I am over the moon about it. I couldn't have hoped for it to be as good as it came out." In summer 2007, Tom Petty reunited Mudcrutch, consisting of himself, Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Te...	Dirt Farmer Levon Helm's early solo albums, made in the 1970s after the Band initially broke up, were hit-and-miss affairs, but his first solo studio release in 25 years represents a rich return to his Southern roots. With co-production and musical support from daughter Amy (of Ollabelle) a...	Trouble in Paradise He's written some of the thorniest, darkest vignettes ever tucked into the verses and chorus of a pop song, but Randy Newman's greatest commercial successes have come with his most ephemeral material. "Short People" was a throwaway, albeit a terrific one, but it catapulted hi...	Raising Sand Perhaps only the fantasy duo of King Kong and Bambi could be a more bizarre pairing than Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Yet on Raising Sand, their haunting and brilliant collaboration, the Led Zeppelin screamer and Nashville's most hypnotic song whisperer seem made for each othe...

One of the Best Albums Ever
Without question Randy Newman's seminal work "Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman" is a "must have" for anyone who appreciates his music, and especially someone who likes to understand the lyrics to a well written tune. I was pleased with the way Randy organized the tunes and his comments showcase his unique sense of humor. Anyone who writes a song about turning Australia into an amusement park for Americans will always receive my full respect and attention. Dave Gubanc

4 stars for Randy
This album had many good songs and typical Randy Newman style. Enjoyable to listen to!

God! Is Randy Newman the most underrated artist of our times?
I have bought all the above Randy Newman CD's. I adore his work. Agree that "Guilty" is up there with Randy Newman songbook 1. But truly every song this wonderful man writes is a gem. Every single one. I have many friends who've never heard of him??? I have closer friends who love him as I do. Folks do not cheat yrselves. Buy one album of the two above and write a review yourself. He's a genius, underappreciated for too long. Or go here him in concert. He's great, the best, my favorite and I love all kinds of music. RN is for that dessert island, the only one you are allowed to take. Think about it...

Randy in the Wintertime
I've been a Randy Newman fan "ever since there WUZ no Randy Newman," and so picture my delight when my very own kids bought me this boxed bonanza for Christmas (so I wouldn't have to). Randy Newman on the stereo on Christmas morning is about as Newmanesque a way to disturb the warmth of home and hearth as you can imagine. At one time or another I've owned every Newman album ever recorded, so I needed this collection like another hole in the head, but I have to recommend it as much for the surprisingly revealing biographical data as for the song selections. There are surprises here for even an old Newman trivialist like myself, and it was a relief to read of Randy's hardships as well as successes, since the dark side of this dark soul has too often been danced around in past articles and interviews. We learn that Randy's father, Irving Newman, MD, was an overbearing and cantankerous coot not above slugging it out with perfect strangers on public highways. We learn that the distracting eye condition Randy was born with, and the failed surgical attempt to correct it, may have helped to mold not only Newman's unique world view, but his discomfort with public attention. Interviewers (myself included) have generally conceded that "Randy Newman just can't look you in the eye," but then, why should he when he has such a gift for cutting straight to the heart with his nostalgic sentiments and shark-attack wit. Of the many selections in this package, my standouts are his 1962 demo Golden Gridiron Boy, a delight to hear at long last since throughout Newman's career it has appeared as nothing more than a musical history anecdote. Turns out it is a quite competent version of that idiotic pop sub-genre of the '50s and early '60s when unrequited love burned teenybopping hearts alive to the accompanyment of snickering female vocal backups. Then comes Jesus in the Summertime, the highly unlikely mock spirtual that has the distinction of having been so offensive to so many ears that a session musician actually walked out of the studio rather than play on it. Now THAT's chutzpah! Personally, I like it, and find nothing offensive about it, other than the fact that it has the name Jesus in the title. Finally, there's Laugh and Be Happy, an unfortunately incomplete demo that features Newman at his Tin-Pan-Alley best, with a catchy ragtime riff and a delightfully mocking lyric. This number is for my money one of the best tracks ever laid down by one of our most consistently rewarding, if challenging, singer-songwriters. Thanks for the memories, Randy!

Way to go Randy!
Well, first, Randy Newman is unbelievably talented. He is a song writer, a singer, and last but not least at all, a film composer. And what a composer! This multi talent has a family name, which can be a real pain in the ars. But Randy seems not to be bothered by it at all. He wrote some of the most beautiful scores of the 90-s. His music for Pleasantville should have won him an Oscar. But remember The Natural, Toy Story, Awakenings, just to name a few. This really nice compilation and anthology gives Newman the treatment he has long time deserved. I love the title: Guilty: 30 years of Randy Newman. This man does not seem to take himself serious. Yet his art is pretty serious, and he is aware of it very much. Randy Newman is there in the world of music, yet he is not there. You have to listen to this man to get to know him, and once you meet him, you do not want to part from him, he will be a friend of yours forever. Randy Newman is right by the side of the greatest composers, Williams, Goldsmith, Bernstein or his late uncle Alfred Newman. Buy this anthology and get to know this musical giant.