Bouillabaisse (album)

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Bouillabaisse: The Best of Fish
Cover art by Mark Wilkinson
Greatest hits album by Fish
Released	25 September-10 October 2005
Recorded	1982–2003
Genre	Neo-prog
Length	143:47
Label	Chocolate Frog Records
Producer	Chris Kimsey Jon Kelly James Cassidy Steven Wilson Elliot Ness Calum Malcolm
Fish chronology
Field of Crows (2004) Bouillabaisse: The Best of Fish (2005) 13th Star (2007)

Bouillabaisse is a compilation double album by Fish released in 2005. It is the third "best-of" collection after Yin and Yang (1995) and Kettle of Fish (1998), however, it covers Fish's entire solo career up to the previous year's studio album Field of Crows. The songs are divided into two sets: Disc 1, entitled "Balladeer", and disc 2, entitled "Rocketeer". It also features the single edits Marillion's three biggest hits, "Kayleigh", "Lavender" (1985) and "Incommunicado" (1987). (Unlike on Yin and Yang, these are the original versions rather than re-recordings.) It also features an edited version of "Goldfish and Clowns" from Sunsets on Empire (1997) which has never been released due to the planned single being ultimately cancelled.

The only "new" track is Fish's version of the Scottish folk song "Caledonia", which had first been released on a 2002 tribute album to Frankie Miller, who had a Scottish number one with his own version in 1992.

In total, the two discs contain 26 tracks (or 31, if the parts of the "Plague of Ghosts" suite are counted individually) with a total time of 143 minutes.

Although not credited, the cover is a digitally edited design by Mark Wilkinson. It shows Fish sitting over a bowl of soup (presumably Bouillabaisse) in a restaurant whose walls are decorated with posters of Fish's previous album covers (an idea strikingly similar to Marillion's European 2002 release, The Best of Marillion.)

The album marked the beginning of Fish's cooperation with the Snapper Music label, which took over the retail distribution of Fish's backcatalogue released on his own imprint Chocolate Frog Record Company. (Similarly, the previous best-of Kettle of Fish had been the first release on his short-lived connection with Roadrunner Records.)