I am going to be perfectly honest with you guys. When Marshall asked me about prospective titles, at first I was very positive about everything, as I was thinking to myself "Just because I am not a ______ fan, it doesn't mean that others might not be". So I was not negative about what they were thinking of releasing. After the first year or so, I did get a bit more real, and I down voted certain release suggestions just because I knew what lot of you all would think and I did not want negativity to abound here where we were the biggest supporters.
"The Collection" really pained me a lot. At first I was surprised that it could be done, but deep down I knew that it was going to be very controversial because of what songs were picked. It is a great sampler of all genre's but it could have been so much better if some of the tracks were replaced with say, "Rock On" by David Essex, which Marshall admitted to me he liked as a song. I am not sure if maybe that one was not available, but it would have been a great disc to put the hits of M/C albums that had been released in stereo by MFSL. If there were a track from "Turnstiles", and maybe the title track of "That's the Way of the World" (to go along with "Shining Star"), and other Columbia stuff that was released by MFSL and thus "quad blocked". It would have been a nice "Fuck You" to MFSL, and it would have been, IMHO, much better.
Still, you really have to thank Marshall from the bottom of your hearts because that guy went to war for us and, as I've said before, put out a stack of HiRez, beautifully mastered SACDs from QUAD ALBUMS that were effectively lost in time. Selecting titles to release is a lot more complicated than just saying "Get the Eagles, Get the Steely Dan's".
Please do not disparage Marshall or AF here in this forum. I would appreciate it if you (the generic "you") did not.