AMG Review of Anthology: The History of Peter Frampton

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Most Peter Frampton collections concentrate simply on his solo career. A&M's 2001 retrospective, Anthology: The History of Peter Frampton, takes a broader view, containing a cut from his first band, the Herd, and five songs from Humble Pie, plus all the solo heavy-hitters from the '70s -- and all in the space of a 16-track single-disc collection. This is a nice tactic, especially since it downplays his famous Frampton Comes Alive (there's only one song from Frampton Comes Alive -- "Show Me the Way." The other big hit from the record, "Baby I Love Your Way," is present in the studio version), thereby offering an introduction not just for the utter neophyte, but for those who only know that blockbuster. Some may argue that all the Humble Pie material takes up space that could have been dedicated to solo cuts, especially since this ignores anything recorded past 1979, but the end result winds up being the lone, concise summation of Frampton's strengths as both a solo artist and guitarist.