Hard Life - Mick Ronson

One more in the shamefully scrappy sequence of "new" Mick Ronson albums uncovered in the decade following his death, not one of which adds anything more to his memory than another disc to play once, then file. Except Hard Life doesn't even merit that consideration, as it eschews the archive in favor of compiling 10 tracks from past collections just in case you missed them.The performances themselves are fair enough. Live takes on "White Light White Heat", "Sweet Dreamer" and "Slaughter On 10th Avenue" date from Ronson's 1989 reunion with Ian Hunter, and remind us just how under-rated the latter days of that partnership were. Other tracks are drawn from solo Ronson sessions in the mid-1970s and early 1980s (including the so-called Indian Summer soundtrack), and are each pleasant enough, without ever touching the heights that Ronsons fans expect of him - and which he, himself, aspired towards.No, what galls is the insistence that this material somehow represents an aspect of Ronson's career that deserves, even demands, to be heard. It really doesn't, as he himself admitted. After all, there's a reason why this stuff was never released at the time.... ~ Dave Thompson, All Music Guide