Carry It on [Best of] [Box set] [Import]

Well! This method is totally bizarre (if it is not bizarre enough to provide bonus tracks that are hard to figure out how to play in the first place--and the directions as to how to play bonus tracks are in tiny, obscure print within the printed book that accompanies the 5 disk set.) This backtracking-from-song-one method of cueing up a song works better or worse on various cd players. On mine, it is virtually impossible to hear the bonus tracks in completion, because pushing the reverse button "scrolls through" the song quickly. It is impossible to lift your finger from the button exactly at the beginning moment of the bonus song. If you don't stop pushing the button at exactly that magical moment, you either hear only a portion of the bonus track, or you have pushed too long and don't hear any of it and you must start a second effort at pushing the button until the perfect moment. Like I say, bizarro.

I suppose it is some marketing exec's idea of a cutesy gimmick. Peter, Paul and Mary, I hope you read this review. You have enough sense that you should have caught this dumb idea and nixed it. It's dumb and offensive. How fun is it, really, to sit over your cd player trying to push a button effectively. Come on, you guys!! Why don't you three write a meaningful song about the lunacy of this aspect of modern button-pushing life. (Ha!) Okay, I've spoken my piece on that! Except for the bonus tracks, it's a nice boxed set.

I listen to CDs while using the computer. I use the CD-RW drive to listen to CDs. I even use the CD-RW drive to (gasp! arrest me!) make "car copies" of new CDs, because they get scratched to bits in the minivan. So when this one came in, my wife asked me to immediately make a car copy for her.

Merely inserting this disk into the CD-RW crashes Windows. Poof, just like that. EVEN WITH THE SHIFT KEY DOWN it crashes Windows! The CD drive goes into an endless loop, hanging the system. The eject button is locked and the 3-finger salute is blocked. Nothing but the Reset button can end it.

Using Linux, I was able, eventually, to play it a little. I was able to make a car copy using k3b in paranoia mode 3 (full error correction). The 48X drive, a Sony that is amazingly good at reading through scratches that other players can't cope with, read the disk at between 1x and 2x. Obviously it was having a lot of trouble reading the disk. This wasn't in "clone" mode, just "normal" mode, yet the car copy was still able to crash Windows same as the original.

In the car, btw, the disks do not play right -- they play the first track, but don't allow tracks to be normally selected. Car drives are, of course, often based on CD-ROM drives, not cheaper "entertainment" CD drives, so crappy copy-protection hacks that let $49 dormroom stereos play a disk will block performance on car drives and many high-end systems. Note that the boxed set does not contain the "CDDA" marque, which normally ensures playability. But who sees that on Amazon?

I may send this back to Amazon. Time Warner has proven that they are either blazingly incompetent, evil, or both.