I Got A Line On You

Assembled by Sony Music's Special Products division, I Got a Line On You is a budget-priced ten-track summary of Spirit's first four albums. Spirit wasn't really a singles band, scoring only one Top 40 hit, "I Got a Line On You," and the album isn't billed as a "greatest-hits" or "best-of" collection, so perhaps the absence of such singles as "Mechanical World," "Dark Eyed Woman," "Animal Zoo," and "Mr. Skin" is less surprising, despite the presence of the title song, "1984," and "Nature's Way," also released as singles. Album tracks "Uncle Jack," "Fresh Garbage," and "Prelude - Nothin' to Hide" would be on the lists of most Spirit fans as among the best tracks by the original band. The other songs included here -- "It Shall Be," "I'm Truckin'," "So Little Time to Fly," and "Aren't You Glad" -- give some sense of the band's musical diversity. But the collection would have been stronger overall if some of the better-known material had been used instead. ~ William Ruhlmann