Review
“Only the second major career-spanning retrospective of the Dead, The Best
of the Grateful Dead – released in the spring of 2015, just before a series
of farewell shows in the summer – takes advantage of the extra disc
2003's The Very Best of Grateful Dead lacked. Weighing in at 32 tracks – a
full 16 cuts longer than Very Best – The Best of the Grateful Dead also
follows a strict chronological sequence, so it takes a little while for the
psychedelic haze to lift and the Dead to settle into the rangy, rootsy groove
that characterized so much of their existence – right around "St. Stephen”
and “China Cat Sunflower,” both from 1969's Aoxomoxoa. From there,
many – but by no means all – of the group's warhorses are marched out,
all in their studio incarnations. This structure perhaps invites some griping
about their sometimes ill-advised attempts to ride commercial waves –
there's no disguising the disco diversion of “Shakedown Street” – but by
celebrating the warts and providing space for that unexpected late-'80s
commercial comeback, The Best of the Grateful Dead is a good capsule history of
a band that usually defies such straightforward narratives." S T
Erlewine – Allmusic.com
