RELEASE ROUND-UP:
SUEDE have their greatest hits issued this week on Singles, a 21-track
collection of every A-side by the band since 1992's memorable debut 45 The Drowners.
Latest Top 20 chart entry Attitude is featured along with another new track,
but sadly not its AA-side Golden Gun, by far the most impressive Suede track
in many a year. Singles marks the first appearance of 1994's Top 3 smash Stay
Together on an album.
Other retrospectives just out include The Very Best of
SHERYL CROW, a 17-track distillation that somehow manages to omit last year's
feisty hit Steve McQueen. To add to the mystery, there are no fewer than three
different editions of the album available on-line, all with unique
tracklistings; the US version does have Steve McQueen, but loses some of the UK-only
selections. Hmm. One of the trio of new recordings (and a single as of this week)
is The First Cut Is The Deepest, originally written and recorded by CAT STEVENS
in 1968. Universal Music (formerly Polygram) have unleashed yet another
Stevens compilation; the umpteenth since 1990's Top 5 Best Of. The 2003 model is a
24-track anthology complete with a DVD of classic TV performances and an
offbeat Spike Milligan-voiced animation for Steven's song Teaser & The Firecat, and
The Very Best Of has already hit the UK Top 10.
The First Cut Is The Deepest
was famously covered by ROD STEWART in the mid-70s, reaching the top 5. Rod
also has yet another Best Of issued this week by one of his old labels; Changing
Faces : The Very Best Of Rod Stewart & The Faces - The Definitive
Collection 1969-1974. The 2 disc collection is only slightly longer than its title. The
timing could be viewed as somewhat cynical, since Stewart justhappens to have a
brand new album out on the very same day through Clive Davis' J imprint, whose
other high-profile act is Alicia Keys. Entitled As Time Goes By : The Great
American Songbook Vol.2, it's the follow-up to last year's surprise big-seller
It Had To Be You, wherein Rod stopped trying to keep pace with contemporary
pop and rock music and crooned a few well-known oldies.
The EAGLES are no
strangers to the "reissue, repackage" syndrome, having seen nearly half-a-dozen
Greatest Hits sets in their first spell of existence between 1971 and 1980, and at
least four more since 1985. We've had Greatest Hits 71-75 (America's
biggest-selling album of all-time until Thriller), Greatest Hits Vol.2, The Best Of,
The Very Best Of, an expanded/re-promoted Very Best Of, and now The Complete
Greatest Hits. The newest cash-in - sorry, celebration - is a double album with
an obligatory unreleased recording. On this occasion, said new song Hole In
The World isn't really up to much; Don Henley's classy vocals elevate a bland
anthem for peace and understanding into something half-decent but it hardly
deserves to share disc space with Hotel California, Life In The Fast Lane,
Desperado, One Of These Nights or any of their past work for that matter.
ERASURE, by contrast, are fairly new to the compilation scene - Hits! is only their
second such release. Sadly, their days of chart domination have long since passed,
a state of affairs confirmed by the track selection for this successor to Pop!
The First 20 Hits, which sold by the million almost exactly 11 years ago.
Rather than faithfully catalogue the duo's releases post-Pop! (15 singles, plus
the latest remix of Oh L'Amour), they've hedged their bets by including more
than half the singles from the first Greatest Hits - although the choices defy
logic; The Circus (#6) is absent, but lesser hits make the cut - while adding
on some mildly popular 90s ditties such as Run To The Sun, I Love Saturday,
Freedom and the surprisingly good cover of Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill from
earlier this year. The now-commonplace bonus CD offers the dubious pleasure of an
18-track Erasure megamix.
Remarkably, there happens to be some completely new music released this week
as well. TEXAS return after a three-year hiatus with their sixth studio set
Careful What You Wish For. The dancehall-influenced Carnival Girl single split
fans much in the way their teaming up with Wu-Tang Clan did in 1998 for Say
What You Want (All Day Every Day). It's either a mismatch of car-crash
proportions or a stroke of genius. A second single is already being lined up for an
assault on the Christmas No.1 spot. There's a third album from BASEMENT JAXX in
the shops from October 20th, too. Kish Kash promises more wildly diverse
delights, with Siouxsie Sioux guesting on the title track. Hear'Say might be dead and
buried (stop that cheering at the back), but the highly-strung MYLEENE KLASS
is not. Rather than go the predictable pop-babe route (see fellow band-member
Kym Marsh's tiresome solo efforts), Klass has come out all guns blazing with a
record that takes her back to her pre-fame Classical music roots. There could
be a gap in the lucrative Vanessa Mae/Bond market this autumn which the album
can take advantage of.
Singles-wise, it's been a much healthier time of late after one of the most
dismally barren summers for music in living memory. EMMA BUNTON has managed to
recover from the woeful Free Me with the marvellous 60s-tastic bossanova rush
of Maybe. Had it been by Geri Halliwell, the result might have had even more
sparkle, since Bunton is not the most charismatic vocalist in the world.
Charting one place below Maybe in the UK Top 10, Mixed Up World by SOPHIE
ELLIS-BEXTOR is a distinctly Pet Shop Boys-flavoured confection. Strong verses are
almost let down by the chorus, but it improves with repeated exposure. Her second
solo album, Shoot From The Hip, is out next week. Also out that day will be the
new AQUALUNG long-player, Still Life. Last year's debut was promising enough
but slightly one-dimensional at times, so it remains to be seen if the
excellent new single Brighter Than Sunshine is representative of Still Life's overall
quality. Meanwhile, DANIEL BEDDINGFIELD's album Gotta Get Thru This continues
to provide yet more chart hits; Friday is the sixth single to be lifted from
the album. It's a frenetic but insistent techno workout with raga leanings,
Beddingfield sounding not unlike a youthful Message In A Bottle-era Sting.
LIBERTY X however, having gained some brownie points for their superbly clinical
Richard X-helmed Being Nobody, go and blow it all by tediously ripping off Jumpin'
Jumpin' by Destiny's Child with absolutely no guile whatsoever on their
new single Jumpin'.
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