Why is The Small Faces' "There Are But Four Small Faces" so ignored?

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I picked up this album today, a great one, and I wonder why it is "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" that gets all the "canonical" attention why this album (as an album, anyway) is more or less completely overlooked?

It contains such tracks as "Itchycoo Park", "Here Comes The Nice", "Tin Soldier" and "Green Circles", tracks that aren't exactly "hidden gems" to say the least. Yet, as an album, this one is hardly ever mentioned as the classic it is.

Because, to my ears, this is a fully consistent album with a lot of great tracks also besides the most famous ones. Just as great as "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake", if not even better. So why isn't this a "canonical" album?

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 29 October 2003 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

it is Englishness as seen from Norway

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Wednesday, 29 October 2003 19:25 (twenty-two years ago)

It died the proverbial commercial death when it was originally released because their old record company Decca simultaneously released another album also called "Small Faces" ("There Are But Four Small Faces" is the American title) expressly to fuck up Loog Oldham and Immediate and, by extension, The Small Faces (allegedly). Also Small Faces were just considered a teenybopper pop band in 1967, no-one was interested in their albums.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 30 October 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

nice version of 'wicked messenger' though...

― cool kid of death, Thursday, 30 October 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I think they were always a singles band - a bluddy good one too, imo. Ogden's... was, as far as I know, the only concept album they made, so I suppose that's why it gets the most coverage.

it is Englishness as seen from Norway

For that matter, what on earth do you make of Stanley Unwin??

― Jez (Jez), Friday, 31 October 2003 09:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Geir is right - it's absolutely fantastic and much, much better than Ogdens.
The 'real' version is this :

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=MISS70305150910&sql=Av7n20r3au48c

and doesn't have the singles that the US version has.

Its a real shame that Ogdens gets all the attention when it doesn't really show their strengths - snappy streetsmart mod-pop (Get Yrself Together, Talk To You)with, on this album, some gentle psych touches. They sound like they're having such fun too - Eddie's Dreaming, All Our Yesterdays and I love the moment half way through Become Like You when the song restarts after a false ending - "Hang on! They're playing it again!"

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 31 October 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Ever since the 60's there's been a million comps but little focus on the "proper" albums at a marketing level. Since most people will therefore end up with a comp with the famous tracks they aren't gonna go for the proper album.

― tigerclawskank, Friday, 31 October 2003 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

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