Kansas - Best Of / Sampler (1974-1980) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's an album that came into being as a result of the Kansas concert that was posted here a few days ago. After guest poster Mike Solof suggested making an album of a concert from Kansas's 1979 Monolith tour, I agreed, but I mentioned that I was really familiar with the band's music. I only knew their big hits, especially "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." He really likes the band and thought that was a shame, so he offered to make a "best of" type album for newbies like me. I agreed again, and suggested that he post that on my blog too.

He went ahead and did that, so here we are. Of course, there are official "best of" albums for the band already. But Mike felt none of those had the ideal selection of songs that he wanted. He focused on just their 1970s heyday, because in the early 1980s they lost key members and became a kind of Christian rock band for a while, before returning to their roots (and getting some key members back) later in the decade. 

If you want to know more, Mike has made a PDF with his explanation, as he usually does. If you think some essential songs were left off, or there are songs that shouldn't have been included, leave a comment. Perhaps Mike will make an updated version.

Unusually for this blog, everything here is released and from the studio albums. But hopefully this is a sampler that will inspire some people to dive deeper into the Kansas catalog. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

Before I get to the usual song list, here's the song list with names of the albums each song is from, and the year that album was released: 

01 Song for America - Song for America (1975)
02 Journey from Mariabronn - Kansas (1974)
03 Down the Road - Kansas (1974)
04 Carry On Wayward Son - Leftoverture (1976)
05 The Wall - Leftoverture (1976)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere - Leftoverture (1976)
07 Point of Know Return - Point of Know Return (1977)
08 Dust in the Wind - Point of Know Return (1977)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You - Monolith (1979)
10 A Glimpse of Home - Monolith (1979)
11 People of the South Wind - Monolith (1979)
12 Loner - Audio-Visions (1980)

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Song for America (Kansas)
02 Journey from Mariabronn (Kansas)
03 Down the Road (Kansas)
04 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)
05 The Wall (Kansas)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere (Kansas)
07 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
08 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
10 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
11 People of the South Wind (Kansas)
12 Loner (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y1GhCvdC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/h9B4sSiXYzdWPLl/file

Mike found the photo of the band. I don't know the details of where or when it's from. 

Kansas - Monolith Live - Springfield Civic Center, Springfield, MA, 9-2-1979 - Studiofied (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's a concert by the American prog rock band Kansas. 

This is a Mike Solof guest post. Kansas are best known for their songs from earlier in the 1970s, like "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." But Mike believes the band's 1979 album "Monolith" is very underrated. It turns out there's really only one bootleg recording of the tour promoting Monolith with soundboard quality. But while the sound quality was fundamentally good, there were issues. For instance, it was in stereo, but there was very little separation. Mike went to great lengths to improve the sound quality still further, running each song through the MVSEP program nine times or more, to separate out each of the instruments and then put them together with better stereo separation. He also stripped out all of the crowd noise, so one can better hear the band's instrumentation without crowd noise getting in the way.

As usual, there are more details in the PDF file Mike wrote that's included in the download zip. But if you like Kansas, this could be their ultimate live album from the end of their prime era. 

This album is hour and 23 minutes long.

01 Intro (Kansas)
02 On the Other Side (Kansas)
03 People of the Southwind (Kansas)
04 Away from You (Kansas)
05 talk (Kansas)
06 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
07 Closet Chronicles (Kansas)
08 The Wall (Kansas)
09 Reason to Be (Kansas)
10 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
11 Angels Have Fallen (Kansas)
12 Opus Insert (Kansas)
13 Stay Out of Trouble (Kansas)
14 The Spider [Instrumental] (Kansas)
15 Portrait [He Knew] (Kansas)
16 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
17 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
18 talk (Kansas)
19 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HDWyJ3Hd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/XteNaMyxGhpOgNR/file

The cover photo is the front design from a T-shirt sold during the band's 1979 tour. I added some text at the bottom.