This expanded collection includes a bonus CD which features 10 bonues tracks including rarities, demo versions and previously unreleased live performances from the BBC. Also included is an extensive booklet which features complete original artwork, plus new liner notes.
Even as a serious-minded singer/songwriter, Cat Stevens never stopped being a pop singer at heart, and with Teaser and the Firecat he reconciled his philosophical interests with his pop instincts. Basically, Teaser's songs came in two modes: gentle ballads that usually found Stevens and second guitarist Alun Davies playing delicate lines over sensitive love lyrics, and up-tempo numbers on which the guitarists strummed away and thundering drums played in stop-start rhythms…

Mona Bone Jakon only began Cat Stevens' comeback. Seven months later, he returned with Tea for the Tillerman, an album in the same chamber-group style, employing the same musicians and producer, but with a far more confident tone. Mona Bone Jakon had been full of references to death, but Tea for the Tillerman was not about dying; it was about living in the modern world while rejecting it in favor of spiritual fulfillment. It began with a statement of purpose, "Where Do the Children Play?," in which Stevens questioned the value of technology and progress. "Wild World" found the singer being dumped by a girl, but making the novel suggestion that she should stay with him because she was incapable of handling things without him…

The two-year interval covered in this volume of Time-Life Music's Singers & Songwriters series was one of consolidation for the many singer/songwriters who had emerged in the early '70s. Carole King followed up Tapestry, the album that established her as a performer after years as a songwriter, with Music, which spawned the hit "Sweet Seasons." James Taylor was on his second follow-up to his commercial breakthrough Sweet Baby James with One Man Dog, which produced "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight." His new wife Carly Simon released her third album, No Secrets, which gave Simon her biggest hit yet with "You're So Vain." John Denver, too, hit new sales peaks with Rocky Mountain High and its title single. And Cat Stevens had followed the success of Tea for the Tillerman with Teaser and the Firecat and its second single "Morning Has Broken." Meanwhile, several new singer/songwriters were crowding the field, among them Don McLean with the epic allegory "American Pie," America with its Neil Young sound-alike "A Horse With No Name," and Seals & Crofts with the lilting "Summer Breeze".

„Foreigner“, released in 1973, was Cat Stevens’ fifth album with Island Records and represents the adventurous, risk- taking streak in his character. In a departure from his largely acoustic sound, the album saw Cat explore his love of R&B and soul music, as can be heard on the record’s main single, “The Hurt.” Recorded largely in Jamaica with an all-star band and the first record to be produced solely by Cat himself, Foreigner is deep, funky and rich with layered meaning.

For the compilers of Time-Life Music's Singers & Songwriters series, which – more or less – chronicles the 1970s singer/songwriter movement, the 24-month period 1970-1971 marked the real birth of that trend, with the popular emergence of such defining figures as James Taylor, Carole King, Carly Simon, John Denver, and Cat Stevens, all of whom had their first big hits in the style included here.

It is impossible to compile a single-disc greatest-hits compilation for Cat Stevens that will come close to satisfying all of his admirers. The Very Best of Cat Stevens is the fifth major attempt to do so and, like its predecessors, it is challenged by its subject's success. Remember Cat Stevens: The Ultimate Collection is the longest of the five (24 tracks) and may be the most comprehensive. But The Very Best of Cat Stevens, released just a year later, has several advantages that make it more appealing. To begin with, it is the only compilation to sequence chronologically songs from every one of Stevens' albums, including the experimental Foreigner.

A&M's 32-track retrospective of eccentric singer/songwriter Cat Stevens manages to cram into two discs what 2001's On the Road to Find Out box set tried to accomplish over four. While not as informative or "rarities"-heavy, Gold tells the artist's story with utter succinctness, from earnest, post-counterculture semi-hedonist to Islamic recluse. All of the key tracks – digitally remastered from the original two-track masters – are here ("Wild World," "The Wind," "Another Saturday Night," "Moonshadow," "Where Do the Children Play?") as well as deeper cuts like "18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare)" and all 18 minutes of "Foreigner Suite." Also included is Stevens' most recent composition. Originally released as a digital download, the emotional and surprisingly rousing "Indian Ocean" was recorded for Stevens' Small Kindness charity to benefit children from the Aceh region who were affected by the December 2004 tsunami.