Released:
October 2001,
BMG, CDCLL(CLM)7048

SA Rock Digest charts:
highest position: 2
weeks on Top 20: 9

Website:
Just Jinger

On every popular album there are some songs everyone likes, a few personal favorites, and then some songs that don't strike a responsive chord. Of course, that's why greatest hits packages were invented.

Like you, gentle reader, I use greatest hits albums as a means of acquiring the best of a band (usually just the hits), and to see if a band's individual albums might be worth buying. Just Jinger's albums are worth owning, but this 'Greatest Hits' is the one to own if only one is possible.

This greatest hits CD starts of with the gentle 'Shallow Waters', moves to their phenomenal 'Sugar Man', then the melancholy 'Father and Farther', the philosophical 'No God?', and on through eighteen tracks, without a dog in the bunch, for almost 70 minutes of music.

Despite some personnel changes from album to album, the Just Jinger style has remained remarkably consistent due to front man Art Matthews's warm yet rock-worthy voice. Behind his sincere singing, these songs have solid, professional playing by the various sidemen Art has worked with through the years.

How does one determine musical quality? Songwriting? Got it, on 'Father and Farther', for one. Melody? 'Shallow Waters' for one example and 'Perfect Ground' for another. Real Rock? There's 'Paradise In Summertime', a song that belongs on every disc jockey's set of summer fun songs.

As usual, JJ's cover graphics and interior design are excellent. On their greatest hits, the cover is eye-catching and strangely evocative. Where in the past their CD covers were quiet, this one silently screams: a reverse-color print of a bullet-riddled car.

No matter what one thinks of Just Jinger's other CDs, their 'Greatest Hits' is 100% fine music, track after track. This is one of a handful of South African albums that make me paraphrase Samuel Goldwyn: "I don't care if it makes money or not, I just think every South African should own a copy of 'Just Jinger's Greatest Hits'.

Kurt Shoemaker, Blanco, Texas, SA Rock Digest, March 2002