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Normally, I despise posthumous compilations. They're usually an excuse for whatever corporation owns the rights to an artist's masters to make a quick buck, and rarely include any genuinely rare or unreleased material (and if they do, it's one song used as bait to reel in the suckers who have to own everything by their favorite band; i.e. the Nirvana greatest hits album). But when the artist in question is Warren Zevon, a man whose music means more to me than anyone else I've ever heard in my life, there's no way I'm not going to buy it. Fortunately, Preludes: Rare And Unreleased Recordings turns out to be anything but crass exploitation.

Assembled by Zevon's son Jordan, the set presents a variety of demo recordings, some of familiar material and some of previously unknown songs. Actually, even the ostensibly familiar ones aren't quite the same: "Accidentally Like A Martyr" has a different melody and much darker, more cynical lyrics in its verses, while "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" is far more lyrically brutal than the studio version. Some of the tracks are solo piano recordings, others feature Zevon with a full band (the credits don't specify which musicians played on these tracks; I suppose it's possible Zevon overdubbed the other instruments himself, as he did on most of Mutineer), and apart from an off-key, misguidedly sardonic take on "The French Inhaler", his singing is as fine as it was on any of his more polished and produced recordings.

It's hard to figure why some of these songs remained outtakes. "Empty Hearted Town", which opens the set, is a stronger ballad than some of the songs Zevon actually did release, and "Steady Rain" and "The Rosarita Beach Café" aren't far behind in quality. I suppose this could be down to the editing-- after all, I'd doubt that Jordan would want anything substandard or uninspired released from the vaults-- but as a fan, I'd like to think it suggests Zevon's writing and performances were so consistent that even the material he rejected was close to top-notch.

I haven't listened to the second disc yet-- it contains interviews with Zevon along with a couple of live performances. Right now I'm more interested in hearing these songs over and over, so I can become as familiar with them as I am with his established classics. My only complaint is that most of the tracks are from the Elektra years; it's too bad there aren't any alternate versions or demos from the later years, because those records were even better than his earlier work. But that's a minor gripe. Overall, this is a great collection, and I'm sure I'll listen to it over and over in the weeks to come.