Michael Schenker - Forever And More The Best Of Michael Schenker - 2CD (2003)

It's only fitting that a "best-of" set would be assembled for the solo work of German metal guitarist Michael Schenker. After all, he was an integral part of one of the genre's all-time best live sets, UFO's 1979 classic, Strangers in the Night. By now, Schenker's solo career has yielded more releases than his tenure with UFO, and the 2003 24-track comp Forever and More: The Best of Michael Schenker focuses mostly on live readings of favorites from his solo albums, but also manages to include several UFO standards as well. It turns out, however, that the live takes on Forever and More weren't recorded especially for this release, as most of the selections come from a pair of earlier solo Schenker releases, 1997's The Michael Schenker Story Live and 1999's The Unforgiven World Tour: Live. Still, for fans just discovering the guitar wizardry of Schenker, Forever and More is a good place to start, as his playing was always more fiery on the concert stage. While it's impossible to ever top the aforementioned Strangers in the Night, Schenker does an admirable job of ripping through such UFO standards as "Natural Thing," "Doctor Doctor," "Lights Out," and "Rock Bottom," as well as such early solo gems as "Into the Arena" and "Captain Nemo" (also included is a cover of the Scorpions' "Another Piece of Meat"). While a few clunkers pop up (especially several best-forgotten tracks from the late '80s/early '90s -- "Save Yourself," "All the Way from Memphis," etc.), Forever and More: The Best of Michael Schenker is a fine Schenker starting point.~Forever and More: The Best of Michael Schenker Review by Greg Prato