Belly
arrived at a strange time for
alternative rock
. Prior to the early 1993 release of their debut,
Star
, they had released a series of critically acclaimed U.K. EPs that balanced the shimmering, otherworldly quality of
Throwing Muses
with an increased sense of songcraft from ex-
Muse
/
Breeder
Tanya Donelly
--
dream pop
that really emphasized the
pop
, while adding emotional undercurrents that could shift from sweetness to haunting within one song.
, like the EPs, captured this well, and since it arrived when all things
alt-rock
had a shot at the charts, they actually had a gold album and a
Billboard
hit with
"Feed the Tree."
This led to semistardom -- not nearly as big as
Kurt
-n-
Courtney
or
Eddie
, nor as gossip-worthy as
Evan
Juliana
, but to a lot of appearances at festivals and even the cover of
Rolling Stone
, which meant that they wanted to broaden their audience and sound with their second album, the
Glyn Johns
-produced
King
. Though the selected songs were good, the big, glossy production didn't quite fit, but it came to define
-- deliberately, too, since they began to remix their British hits for
MTV
and modern
rock
radio.
Rhino
's 2002 collection
Sweet Ride: The Best of Belly
collects all of the singles, but not necessarily in their original form. Included are
"Gepetto"
in the remix version (which was, admittedly, U.S. single version); the live version of
"Dusted"
; a U.S.-radio mix of
There are a couple of key album tracks, and a whole lotta B-sides: a wonderful, slyly sexy version of
"Trust in Me"
from
Disney
's
The Jungle Book
, a cover of
"Hot Burrito #1,"
and, of course, the tremendous title track. There's also some collector-bait ephemera here, okay
B-sides, a French version of a song from
, and a cover of
"Are You Experienced?"
~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine