A little over two years after the release of
Aaron Carter
's first compilation, 2003's
Most Requested Hits
,
Jive
/
Legacy
released
Come Get It: The Very Best of Aaron Carter
in the first month of 2006. Since
Carter
only had two charting singles as a teen and pre-teen
pop
star, that's a lot of comps for somebody who never was a huge star, but given that
BMG
, the parent company of his label,
, merged with
Sony
the year after
was released, it's understandable that
's catalog division would want to release their own
comp. What's not quite so understandable is that
Aaron
's first hit,
"Shake It,"
is absent from both
and
Come Get It
, and it's not the only song missing on the 2006 disc, either.
Michael Hill
's good liner notes mention songs like
"Surfin' USA"
"(Have Some) Fun with the Funk"
as being pivotal moments in
's career, but they're nowhere to be found -- and the disc itself is three songs shorter than the previous comp, as well. That doesn't mean it's an inferior collection, however.
is better in small doses, which means the tighter
not only benefits from its concise running time, but it has a sharper song selection and sequencing than
, too. While that may not be enough to reveal
as a great forgotten
teen pop
star from the turn of the millennium -- frankly, he never had great songs and his pubescent charm wears thin for anybody who wasn't a pre-teen in 2000 -- it is enough to make
the definitive document of
's height of near-stardom. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine