POP & ROCK CDs: Shaun de Waal
CHRISTMAS looms, and thus it is the time of the greatest hits compilation. There are various straightforward collections — Simply Red, Fine Young Cannibals, Van Halen, Queen, Roy Orbison, even Boney M — and then there are variations on the theme.
Rod Stewart, for instance, has followed the lead of last year’s Madonna and Elton John packages and released If We Fall in Love Tonight (Warner Bros), a clutch of love (or at least slow) songs, mostly old, a couple new. Almost all are squelchily sentimental, and even the Tom Waits numbers appropriated by Stewart are turned from gruff irony into cheap melodrama.
Joe Cocker and Chris Isaak are, on the surface, as similar as chalk and cheese, but both are distinctive vocal stylists, and both have new semi-“unplugged”, semi-hits collections out. Mixing old, new, and cover versions, Cocker’s Organic (Parlophone) and Isaak’s Baja Sessions (Reprise) each have a relatively relaxed air.
Both show these singers’ respective strengths, though Cocker’s version of Van Morrison’s Into the Mystic demonstrates what a blunt instrument his voice has become, and Isaak’s take on Orbison’s Only the Lonely displays the limits of his range — as well as his impeccably tasteful restraint. Baja Sessions is comparatively cheery and informal after his last one, Blue Forever, but it still drips studied melancholy.
Of the ordinary greatest hits collections, the best to go for are probably Queen (EMI) and Roy Orbison (EMI), the former for the first disc of numbers made before Queen traded quirkiness for robo-rock, and the latter despite the fact that most are the Eighties re-recordings of his classics.
Then there’s the third two-CD set of Beatles leftovers, Anthology III (Apple/EMI), which one can only view as a terrible waste of money. Most are curiosities only. Not one of their songs here outshines the “official” version, and packaging them like this just sullies the band’s otherwise neatly self- contained oeuvre.
Christmas is also the time of anthologies, so if you if you want a stockingful of Bon Jovi, INXS, Faith No More and others, look out for Pure Rock Ballads (PolyGram), though “pure” is not the word I’d use. Cool Connexion II (PolyGram) provides 16 slinky, rappy R&B numbers, ranging from LL Cool J to Janet Jackson and PM Dawn.
Somewhat trippier is The Rebirth of Cool Six (Island), with pieces from Nicolette, Alex Reece and the like; some, inevitably, are better than others. Buy-Product: Brief Encounters is an interesting and often excellent sampler of artists on the Geffen label, including Beck, Sonic Youth and a slew of others you probably haven’t heard of, but might well in coming years.
The Best Party Album in the World … Ever (EMI/PolyGram) is astonishingly varied, with two CDs whizzing through everything from a Grease megamix to The Monkees, Billy Rae Cyrus, Ipi Tombi and even Dr Hook (remember Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk?), but I’m not sure this is a party I want to attend. The Afrikaans joke-version of the macarena dance craze, together with a bunch of other “treffers”, is somewhat unfortunately named Maak-Haar-Eina (EMI) and isn’t much fun at all.
Looking back over the year, REM’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros) stands out by a mile (though it is a trifle over-long), and Patti Smith made a magnificent comeback with Gone Again (Arista/BMG). Smith’s spiritual daughter PJ Harvey put out a superb collaboration with John Parish, her old mate from Bristol’s delightfully named Automatic Dlamini. He provides wonderfully Beefheartian backing for Harvey’s yelps and moans, to make Dance Hall at Louse Point (Island) one of 1996’s strangest and best albums.
Other women to distinguish themselves include Heidi Berry, whose Miracle (4AD) has her crystalline voice floating beautifully above Enoesque soundscapes, to beguiling effect. Lisa Germano’s Excerpts from a Love Circus (4AD) is fuzzier, but also dreamy and quite captivating.
Sheryl Crow has won Grammy Awards and had big hits. One of them, the insanely catchy If It Makes You Happy, is included on her new album, titled (or untitled) Sheryl Crow (A&M), a swaggery collection of Stones-style country rockers. With the sharp, short (35 minutes) The Burdens of Being Upright, Tracy Bonham showed the Beth Harts of the world how it should be done.
And then there’s Neneh Cherry’s third album, Man (Virgin), on which she talks back to James Brown and proves to be the ideal voice for one of Tricky’s dazzling compositions. Sassy and sultry, Cherry sweeps through the mutating genres of modern pop with effortless aplomb.
This was the year, too, in which the Self- Indulgent Megalomaniacal-Genius Formerly Known As Prince was freed from his Warner Bros servitude, and put out a new triple- album, Emancipation, on his own label (distributed by EMI). The pity is, though, that he hasn’t evolved much in the last seven or eight years, and I doubt whether the world really needs another three Prince albums.