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21 #1 Hits: The Ultimate Collection
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21 #1 Hits: The Ultimate Collection
Current price: $16.99
Barnes and Noble
21 #1 Hits: The Ultimate Collection
Current price: $16.99
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It's not accurate to say that
' catalog has been mistreated on CD -- he was one of the first major
artists to be given an excellent, comprehensive multi-disc box set, and he's one of the few
artists to see most of his actual full-length LPs reissued on CD. Despite all this activity, there has been one glaring omission from his discography: a single-disc overview of his career containing all his big hits. Released a few months after his death,
's 2006 release
comes close to filling that bill. Like most collections that narrow their focus to just
chart-toppers,
contains the lion's share of the artist's best-known songs -- in this case,
and his duet with
on
are all here -- yet misses some important and popular sides that came up shy of the pole position. Here, such early singles as
and
are missing in action, and all deserve a spot on a definitive introduction to
, particularly since there's room for them on this 50-minute disc. Also, this comp suffers from odd sequencing: most of his best-known songs all arrive within the first six songs, including the 1988 re-recording of
which sounds out of place sandwiched between the '60s classics
After that introductory burst, it settles into a rough chronological order, which only highlights the fact that the 1988
would have been a better closer than
's admittedly fine 1969 live version of
But this is nitpicking: there is no other single-disc
CD that comes as close to offering as much of his best in one disc as
, and it's nice to finally have such a collection in his catalog after such a long wait. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine