A fine collection of hits (The Best Of Me - Bryan Adams)

Member Name: ajaybee

Product:	The Best Of Me - Bryan Adams
Date:	11/04/01 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Radio-friendly rock

Disadvantages: Stay away from the ballads

Everyone needs a bit of MOR in their music collection, and MOR doesn't come much cheesier (or indeed better...) than Bryan Adams. This album, his second 'Best Of', was released in 1999 to capitalise on the success of his 'On A Day Like Today' album - his career having been given something of a revival thanks to the aid of sometime-Spice Girl Melanie C.

THE BEST OF ME has 15 tracks, plus one hidden: the superb track he recorded which trance music pioneers Chicane, 'Don't Give Up', a UK #1 single and deservedly so: it's one of the best songs he's ever lent his vocals to. Suprisingly, Bryan's vocals sit well with the dubby background beat...it's a strange combination which really works, and is right up there with the best of his work.

Elsewhere most of content of this album should be familiar to a lot of people... The good thing about Bryan Adams is you pretty much know what you're getting - plenty of solid, MOR tunes, equally radio/VH1-friendly and purpose built for selling out stadium-sized arenas. The album has a mixture of Adams' big rock numbers and the ballads which have normally produced big hits (for example, 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You'), which is far too long at 6 and a half minutes, but was a massive hit at the start of the 1990s.

Summer of '69 and Run To You - Adams' finest hour - remain as brilliant today as they did when they were released all those years ago... Two awesome tracks, which sit alongside the likes of Bon Jovi's 'Living On A Prayer' and Guns'N'Roses 'Paradise City' as classic '80s rock anthems.

Strangely for a best of, Adams' more recent work also holds its own well - the aforementioned Chicane duet, 'When You're Gone' with Mel C and 'Cloud #9' (also remixed by Chicane) show that Adams can still cut it with the best of them today. The album is bookended by two brand new cuts
, 'The best Of Me' and 'Inside Out' and these also rank amongst the best tracks on the entire album.

Like I said before, the slower numbers expose something of a weaker side to Adams. The acoustic live version of 'I'm Ready' (lifted from the MTV Unplugged album), Adams' more relaxed songs are rock ballads by numbers - 'All For Love' with Rod Stewart & Sting is awful; 'Please Forgive Me' is just plain boring, as is 'Everything I Do' beyond the four minute mark.

Overall though it's a good album. It should be in every rock fans' collection, no doubt. Worth investigating who likes to hear a good soft rock tune, quite simply.

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