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Jolly anthologies

When you care enough to give
the very “Best Of”

by MIRROR MUSIC STAFF

Whether you’re freshly hooked on the U.K.’s super sounds of the ’90s, or a former Britpop fanatic trying to condense your collection (or sample a band you overlooked), or someone with a friend or family member in either category, these compilations are made for your wish-list/shopping cart. Supergrass’s Supergrass Is 10: Best of 94–04 from Parlophone spans the punky Monkees’ career from their upstart, Buzzcock-ian beginnings to their latter-day good-time glam and soulful rock ’n’ roll, with a top-notch exclusive track to boot.

Once More With Feeling: Singles 1996–2004 celebrates Placebo’s songwriting prowess with hard-candy treats like “Teenage Angst” and “This Picture,” sweet book-ends to a solid catalogue of androgynous anthems. Richard Ashcroft’s beloved, bygone rock band the Verve is commemorated in This Is Music: The Singles 92–98, with all their grand hippie epics and heavy-handed ballads about life, death and the doped-up plateau in between, including “Bittersweet Symphony.”

A more recent and mild-mannered band of Brits is Travis, whose simply titled Singles collects 18 of their lighthearted pop-rock gems, with sporadic hard-assed outbursts. The band’s recent silence supports my theory that singer Fran Healy and the Darkness’s Justin Hawkins are one and the same—discuss. (Lorraine Carpenter)

Trenchcoat tunes

What do you do when your last album sucked so much ass, the aftertaste begged for toilet paper? Drop a best-of, naturally, and top it off with a cover. Korn’s Greatest Hits Vol. 1 kicks off with a version of Cameo’s “Word Up” that’s perfect for your nephew’s birthday party. Korn favourites among the disgruntled trenchcoat caste, including “A.D.I.D.A.S.‚” “Got the Life‚” “Make Me Bad‚” “Here to Stay” and “Trash,” are here.

With a bonus DVD of live performances of “Freak on a Leash‚” “Right Now” and “Falling Away From Me‚” Marilyn Manson chronicles his sordid career on Lest We Forget: The Best Of. There are covers here also—Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” comes off colour-by-numbers, but Mr. Manson makes up for it with “Tainted Love,” first covered way back when by Soft Cell. Includes the killers “Get Your Gunn‚” “Tourniquet” and “The Beautiful People‚” and all of Manson’s fashion-savvy videos. (Lateef Martin)

Soulful sounds

Seal’s 14-track Best 1991-2004 features trademark songs from the British pop-rocker, like “Kiss From a Rose” and “Crazy.” Besides music from his four albums, this complete retrospective also features a new cover of Dionne Warwick’s classic “Walk on By.”

Macy Gray’s The Very Best Of also features a cover—Gray’s version of the Aerosmith classic “Walk This Way.” But for the most part, this 17-track set concentrates on the quirky singer’s biggest hits from her three albums, including the ubiquitous ballad “I Try,” the ultra-funky “Do Something” and her duet with the superb Erykah Badu on “Sweet Baby.” Four bonus tracks include remixes of Gray hits “Sexual Revolution” and “I’ve Committed Murder,” the latter courtesy of Gang Starr.

Mixes of Marvin Gaye’s biggest hits are the subject of the two-disc Marvel of Marvin compilation. The first disc features soul stars like the Isley Brothers and Gladys Knight doing covers of Gaye classics like “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” The second disc takes 13 of the 17 tracks from disc one and blends them into a continuous mix. It’s a fitting way to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Gaye’s death. (Gerard Dee)

Raps to wrap

Stuffing stockings is always tricky, but you can’t go wrong with the Wu-Tang Clan—look for Legend of the Wu-Tang: Greatest Hits from BMG. The crew from Staten Island changed hip hop in the ’90s, a fact reflected by the 20,000-plus fans who showed up at their reunion show recorded live this past July. It’s captured on the Disciples of the 36 Chambers: Chapter 1 and 2, the CD and DVD from Sanctuary. Perhaps the last live performance of ODB that you’ll ever see is right here.

Cash Money heads can pour out some liquor for the release of Juvenile’s Greatest Hits, featuring “Slow Motion” and “Back That Thang Up,” while nuff people have been dreaming of sugarplums and Nas’ Street Disciple LP for some time now. Check your list twice for the essential Ghana Soundz Vol. 2: Afro Beat, Funk and Fusion in ’70s Ghana on Soundway, and Afroman’s Jobe Bells, featuring gems like “Deck My Balls” and “Nutscracker,” for some Christmas comedy relief. (Scott C)

What’s up, Doc Marten?

The ska-punk-new-wave kids won’t go home empty-handed this year. Not if you get your mitts on The Greatest Songs Ever Written by Us, 27 tunes from the whole two decades that NOFX have been earning their stripes as the premier new-school SoCal punk band. It’s understandable that Fat Mike and co. left their magnum opus “The Decline” off this CD (it’s, like, 20 minutes long), but the absence of “The Brews” is inexcusable.

Older rude boys ’n’ girls, now given to skanking at a more reasonable pace, will greatly appreciate the Studio One Classics compilation for the esteemed Soul Jazz label. From the birth of ska (the Skatalites) to the dawn of dancehall (Sugar Minott), Studio One’s late Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd—he passed away last May—was there, recording the finest in Jamaican pop and committing it to wax.

With the resurgence of the arty punk-funk sound of turn-of-the-’80s New York City back in favour of late, it’s worth recalling one of the biggest names in Big Apple post-punk, David Byrne’s Talking Heads. Rhino have released both The Best Of, spanning the decade the band was extant, and also The Name of This band Is, an expanded, two-CD version of the noted live album from 1982. (Rupert Bottenberg)

Giving on video

For leftfield electronica types, the only thing that might top a 15-year retrospective CD of all the sweet shit the Warp label has put out would be a DVD of the same. Yup, the WarpVision DVD gathers all those fucked-up videos that earned more chatter than actual MuchMusic rotation—the ride-’em-kogal craziness of LFO’s “Freak,” the hospital hijinx of Squarepusher’s “Come on My Selector,” the full-length version of Chris Cunningham’s creepy/genius “Windowlicker” clip for Aphex Twin. The second disc in this set is a maniacal mix of the videos.

Speaking of Cunningham, he has a DVD of his own in the Directors Label Series from Palm Pictures, as do Charlie Kaufman collaborators Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. Aside from the music videos these guys have done for the likes of Björk and Daft Punk, Madonna and Autechre, Foo Fighters and the White Stripes, each DVD has a second disc of rarities, docs, ads, short films and what have you. All three are assembled in the brand-new Directors Label Series Box Set, which includes a fourth disc of recent videos and a panel discussion with the trio and Jack Black, booklets for each and a bonus, hand-drawn exquisite-corpse poster. (Rupert Bottenberg)