Only the second major career-spanning retrospective of
the Dead,
The Best of the Grateful Dead -- released in the spring of 2015, just before a series of farewell shows in the summer -- takes advantage of the extra disc 2003's
The Very Best of Grateful Dead lacked. Weighing in at 32 tracks -- a full 16 cuts longer than
Very Best --
The Best of the Grateful Dead also follows a strict chronological sequence, so it takes a little while for the psychedelic haze to lift and the Dead to settle into the rangy, rootsy groove that characterized so much of their existence -- right around "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower," both from 1969's
Aoxomoxoa. From there, many -- but by no means all -- of the group's warhorses are marched out, all in their studio incarnations. This structure perhaps invites some griping about their sometimes ill-advised attempts to ride commercial waves -- there's no disguising the disco diversion of "Shakedown Street" -- but by celebrating the warts and providing space for that unexpected late-'80s commercial comeback,
The Best of the Grateful Dead is a good capsule history of a band that usually defies such straightforward narratives.
