Label: Big Joco Music Records
Release date: 12. 11. 2021
Production: Jože Hribar (Big Joco)
Genre: Glam Metal / Hard Rock
Rating: 8.5/10
There’s no need to waste many words on Chateau. Every true-blue Slovenian rocker knows them. Back in the first half of the nineties, the band carved its name into the immortal part of our hard rock legacy (you could even say glam metal legacy) with a string of superbly arranged rock anthems of huge melodic catchiness, which showed off the group’s outstanding talent, with the creative nucleus built around the Zvone Hranjec – Matjaž Ograjenšek axis. That means they were in the right place at the right time, and, as a result, that nobody makes bands like that in Slovenia anymore. Alongside their fellow Velenje locals Šank Rock and Postojna’s Mary Rose, with their English-language classic “Rocks Off”, Chateau were one of the, let’s just say, flagship Slovenian rock bands that, more than 30 years ago, popularized the global glam metal scene’s look of the day over here. In other words, Chateau were an important reflection in Slovenia of the glam metal trends of the time, a genre that was enjoying a real heyday on the wings of Van Halen, KISS, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake (radically remade with the album “1987”), and the no less hot Skid Row, Dokken and Winger.
With songs like Avantura, the fantastic ballad Objemi me, Zaradi tebe, Gremo v Nebo, Pobegniva and the other fantastic ballad, Tanja, they created flawless classics of Slovenian rock that every (true-blue) Slovenian rocker knows. And? They remain timeless. Then there’s the cheeky and no less timeless cover of The Kinks hit Lola, which, back when it came out and we were still living in the former common state, even became the target of censorship terror. And of course there’s the arguably most important moment of the band’s career: the adaptation of the Styx classic Boat on the River, known to everyone as Mlinar na Muri, which eventually brought the Chateau name into practically every Slovenian household and cemented it there.
In November 2021, a vinyl record finally came out: the compilation “The Best Of”, with a vinyl run that sold out fast. Sold out before it was even officially released. On pre-orders. The band has been promising a reprint for a while now (and on that note, it wouldn’t hurt to think about widening the selection to cover the career highs from the debut and the fifth studio album, or adding some ‘lost’ live track from the nineties to the reprint)! Of course it all depends on finances, but for their body of work Chateau should have gotten at least a double vinyl compilation of career highlights! But there’s a catch, of course. A balancing act. Do you put out a compilation that strictly follows the career hits, or one that rounds off the band’s career cross-section in the most sensible way possible? “The Best Of”, which is now out, follows first and foremost the very biggest hits, with ‘one beauty flaw’ (more on that below).
This collection of the band’s biggest hits is hugely important not only because it announces the reactivation of the legendary rockers, who woke up from hibernation a year earlier, but because it puts classics on a physical format that you can’t get anywhere else, except, say, when you’re drooling over them on YouTube. The selection is interesting: it skips the debut “Tvoje oči” (1990) and the fifth studio album “Brez tebe” (1996) entirely, while the career’s biggest ‘hit punches’ dominate it, embodied by the brilliant second studio album “Objemi me” (1992). The central album of Chateau’s career, with the hits listed above: the title ballad and the equally good ballad Tanja, plus the thundering anthems Gremo v Nebo and Pobegniva.
It opens with one of the central evergreens of Slovenian rock’n’roll, Mlinar na Muri (the original version from the album of the same name, from 1994). Then come Avantura and Lola from the album “Avantura” (1993), and interestingly, the band also decided to include the closing track of the album “Do konca” (2011), the lovely Zaradi tebe, which earns its spot on the compilation, even though the reputation of the older evergreens overshadows it by a mile. Side A and side B of this ‘best of’ vinyl each close with a new original song. That’s the previously mentioned ‘beauty flaw’ of the compilation, which is why it could just as well have been called “Pesmi nove, pesmi stare”. Why? Because it also holds two brand-new tracks. On side A it’s the superb new, wound-up, shiny rocker Pesmi nove, pesmi stare, while side B closes in more than convincing fashion with another entirely new, punchy, mid-tempo track, Zvezde vedo. These two songs are harbingers of what happened two years later, when the seventh studio album “2023” came out. At the same time, already on “The Best Of”, both show that Hranjec hasn’t forgotten how to write good music (let’s not forget that this talent of his on the breakthrough album “Objemi me” is what actually put Chateau’s career on its feet), and that Matjaž has kept his vocal form, which sounds fresh and well preserved even in his mature era.
So! The huge enthusiasm of probably the biggest Chateau fan in Slovenia, Jože Hribar, who launched his own label, Big Joco Music Records, stood godfather to this compilation of greatest hits, which the fans snapped up right away on pre-order. We’re waiting for the reprint. We’re already in 2025, which means RockLine was shamefully late with its review of this ‘best of’ compilation, while Chateau put out a new, very good seventh studio album, “2023”, in November 2023. The funny thing in all this is that “The Best Of” is actually the first vinyl record in the career of a band that started out in the era when vinyl was king.
Bottom line! “The Best Of” kicks straight ahead, no brakes! It shows the evergreen quality of the band’s rock classics and represents a part of their body of work that has passed the test of time and so speaks to us timelessly. A body of work that ranks among the most important building blocks in the foundations of the classic days of Slovenian hard rock and glam metal!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
Side A:
1. Mlinar na Muri
2. Gremo V Nebo
3. Pobegniva
4. Lola
5. Pesmi Nove, Pesmi Stare
Side B:
1. Objemi Me
2. Zaradi Tebe
3. Avantura
4. Tanja
5. Zvezde Vedo
