bestof2

THE BEST OF BEST OFS

We open with a look at some of the first few out of the gate. In these cases, we should probably leave our cynicism behind, what with some of these having been released in the late summer and not obviously trying to cash-in on the Christmas market.

Billy Bragg released a collection under the heading of Essential (as Bruce Springsteen did later), Must I Paint You A Picture? in which a career overview is offered and in order, too (you'd be surprised how many compilations miss this seemingly obvious career charting exercise). Classic Billy is represented well (Between The Wars, Sexuality) as well as his more recent work with Wilco and the Blokes. No problems here, sir. Likewise with the Chemical Brothers, a clear singles collection, the only omissions being with material like It Began In Afrika or Come With Us (which, whisper, whisper, weren't much cop anyway). This shows a very shrewd sense of fan compassion, the ability to throw their hands up and say, yes, we know those tracks weren't among our best, that's why we've left them off. Bravo. Sadly, the Chems ruin this intuition (along with Bragg) with their very own unnecessary 'bonus' CD, bah.

by Woodsey

If only that were it...

Possibly the most argument-inciting bestof of 2003 was R.E.M, In Time, a decent little singles collection but with some startling omissions. With the advent of the internet, a lot of artists when looking for the perfect compilation tracklisting ask the fans on their websites, (no bad idea, but last year Bjork tried it - the fans eschewed It's Oh So Quiet and the album suffered as a result) and the R.E.M. fans clearly don't like Shiny Happy People or virtually anything from the Monster era. Crush With Eyeliner, Strange Currencies, Find The River, no place here. Showing those Americans the way is Suede who've compiled ALL their singles on one neat album, even the elusive Stay Together. They're not in order (some have suggested this is because they don't want to show their steady decline, ahem) but at least there's no dumb 'bonus' CD, unlike, say a certain Athens band. In fact, now Suede have split, this collection is rendered complete...

On this singles tip, we come across the Pet Shop Boys in reflective mood. On Pop Art they've included all of their top 20 singles (i.e. you're only missing one or two) and cheekily divided them into 'pop' and 'art' (the distinction is blurred at best...) Points off for 'bonus' remix CD, as with Primal Scream, another band who, like, the Manics, no-one would've expected to produce a commercial bestof, them being all socio-political and all. But hey.

Then, to catch the middle-aged penny, we find more 'mature' music. The Boomtown Rats released a bestof despite no-one knowing any more than three of their hits plus being irrelevant this side of 1982, a Peter Gabriel bestof suffering simply because it's a Peter Gabriel bestof (Hit, it's called, how I laughed) and Erasure, who apparently still believe some people are interested in them despite having released a satisfactory compilation in the form of Pop! some years ago and being denounced as TRUE ('SPIT' - Ed) by the NME in 1997. Apparently the Erasure collection features a 'megamix' of all their best-loved tracks. Necessity is the mother of invention. The Essential Bruce Springsteen is good, covering a wide selection of boss (aha!) tracks, but hardly unique as the typeface on the front's been used to endorse many other recent 'Essential' collections, the rascals that Sony/Columbia are. Lastly, (and it seems unfair to group them in with this oldies bunch, but they both have that world-weary edge to their music) appears Sheryl Crow (a fine selection) and Tori Amos which is a slippery album comprising odd choices and remixed versions of her old tracks. And no Pretty Good Year, as I suspected..

And to finish off with the present, there's Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest Hits (no Aeroplane?) that disappointingly nixes their funkier side for more blissed-out Universally Speaking, Road Trippin' cuts, and the Underworld anthology - not knowing much about Underworld it seems unfair for me to comment but at least Rez is there as well as the ubiquitous (but for good reasons) Born Slippy.

Time for some much-needed conclusions, then. Well, to put it frankly bestofs are always going to equal some fast cash for the record companies, but it's whether the artists in question can still maintain their emotional integrity that seems to me to mark the good from the bad. From this year's crop, the choice advice would be to not offer a catchpenny 'bonus' CD of unnecessary material (and thereby taking the completist's pound) look at the tracklisting for the obvious oversights (don't deny your pasts, kids), avoid the title The Very Best Of (too pretentious) and offer a anachronism-avoiding retrospective in order so we can see the way a certain group progresses through time. With these pointers in mind, the winner in my mind this year is the superb Billy Bragg for his fascinating compendium of tracks, close runners-up being the Chemical Brothers for their brave perception of their own material and the Pet Shop Boys and Suede for their completism.

Nah, forget it, just go for The Very Best Of Foster and Allen.

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