War Is Over: The Best of Phil Ochs

On the one hand this compilation is hardly a "best of." On the other, the title is apt: this is a collection of Ochs after his most political period, and is dominated by difficult, uneven, and harrowing post-'67 material. Hanging up his solo activist persona, Ochs experimented with strings, folk rock, and full-tilt rock & roll, looking for a way out of the troubadour cult status he'd created for himself. The set may not be representative of Ochs as a whole, but there's an affecting poetic impressionism at work, and the sound of a man trying to make sense of his own life, as he also tries to make sense of the changes around him. --Roy Francis Kasten