Doesn't get much better.... (The Best Of Me - Bryan Adams)

Member Name: Zozzy

Product:	The Best Of Me - Bryan Adams
Date:	29/08/03 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great voice, Great lyrics, Great songs!

Disadvantages: Rod Stewart's cameo!

Ah, the lovely Bryan Adams. So many hits, so little time. I suppose there’s not much that can be said about this chap that hasn’t already been repeated time and time again, but let’s give it a bash anyway.

I was converted to the musical wonder that is Bryan by some friends, when they just happened to put on one of his albums when I was staying with them. Of course I knew about him from his amazingly popular theme song from the Kevin Costner film of Robin Hood, but the thought had never occurred to me to really listen to his other work, and frankly after all the airplay ‘Everything I Do…’ received, I was sick of it. However, after hearing ‘Run To You’ and ‘Summer of ‘69’, I was on the verge of becoming converted.

So, when I saw ‘The Best of Me’ out shopping one day, I would have bought it anyway, but the fact that it was on sale made it even more of a bargain. After just one play I loved this album completely and still do. All the best and most diverse hits from Bryan’s incredible career in one place? It’s got to be good…

Track One: The Best of Me. A perfectly good way to start with a song that, whilst very good and full of sound guitar work, Bryan’s husky voice and some great lyrics, isn’t great enough to dwarf what’s still to come. “When you want it, when you need it, you’ll always have the best of me,” croons the Ontario-born star, which let’s face it is a pretty good proposition for any woman with a pulse. Sorry, I digress… Anyway, this is lively enough to have your foot tapping slowly in time but not too quick-paced to put you off dancing to it if you want to, and have the right partner of course…

Track Two: Can’t Stop This Thing We’ve Started. A lively intro, powerful vocals included, herald the start to one of my favourites, the quite lively second track with grea
t lyrics. “I can’t stop this thing we’ve started, I wanna know it’s right, I can’t stop this course we plotted…” isn’t that how relationships are meant to be (sigh)? A great rhythm with a great chorus are two of the main attractions of this song which just shows how good this man is at writing great music and putting all the right emotion in the right place when he sings it.

Track Three: I’m Ready. We’ve got a bit of a change here. ‘Can’t Stop’ is all guitars and fast-paced brilliance, and if you like that you may be disappointed when this song starts next. Very gentle accompanying music and a slow tempo drift along with Bryan’s voice possibly not complimented with this style of music, and whilst if you like this kind of song it is undoubtedly very good, I prefer a bit more life in a song. This is a simple and really very touching love song with a slightly haunting quality that fully deserves it’s place on the album but simply isn’t one of my favourites. A case of each to their own rather than of a lacklustre song.

Track Four: Summer of ’69. Now we’re talking, you can’t deny this song is a classic. Loud and accurately aggressive guitars kick it off before the drums join in, all the time with those classic lyrics…”I got my first real six-string, bought it at the five-and-dime, played it ‘til my fingers bled, it was the summer of ‘69’. Anyone who has a memory of a golden summer, or of their teenage years, must surely appreciate the lyrical value of this song. Just in case, the whole story is sung along to a brilliant rhythm that you can’t help but nod your head and tap your foot to. Considering it was written in 1984, it still sounds amazing and probably always will.

Track Five: Let’s Make A Night To Remember. Another slow track, pretty much perfect for shuffling around contentedly in
the arms of someone you love. God, what is it about his lyrics that makes you want to be in a relationship?

Back to the song though, whilst it is slow it is far from dull, with lovely, well-sung lyrics. When it comes to that slow dance at the end of a night out, this quality of music makes the rubbish Gareth Gates and Westlife come up with look like a complete joke. I bet they can’t play guitar this well, either.

Track Six: All For Love (with Rod Stewart and Sting). Oh God, why are those two on here? Get off and leave Bryan to it! Oh rats, they’re not going anywhere, I suppose I’ll just have to work around them.

Another slow track, which I feel is let down by Rod Stewart’s presence. Bryan’s doing the husky voice thing again and Sting is pretty good at that himself, but Rod isn’t in the same league as far as my opinion is concerned. We have, for the most part, one line sung by Bryan, then one by say Sting, then the last by Rod, and Rod’s vocals seem to make it all feel a bit patchy considering how much more suited the other two’s are together.

On the other side, they are three men who have had a lot of success over a long period of time so it can’t be the worst collaboration ever conceived by a long way. Definitely not a bad effort, personally I would have physically booted Rod off the stage and made it a lot better though!

Track Seven: Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? Oh Bryan, stop with the slow stuff and get rocking! What, just one more? Oh, go on then.

I can’t help but feel that this is one slow-dance outing too many, and it’s my least favourite track on here by a long way. It has a slightly Spanish, maybe Mexican feel to the guitar work and whilst Bryan’s voice is as gorgeous as ever, it doesn’t really seem to gel with the musical accompaniment. If I had my way I’d get him to sit down with an acoustic guitar, tell the
band to shut the heck up, find the person with the maracas and shove them down their throat, and just let Bryan do this one on his own.

Track Eight: Run To You. Wahey! Now we’re talking. A song about a man who is with a woman who is a perfectly good partner but doesn’t quite offer the same passion as the woman he’s singing to. Lucky her.

A dramatic intro followed by “She says her love for me could never die, but that’d change if she ever found out about you and I…” you’re just waiting for this one to kick off and when it does it’s time for that classic chorus “I’m gonna run to you, cause when the feeling’s right I’m gonna run to you”.

This isn’t really that fast-paced but it is so well written and performed that it doesn’t seem to last long enough. An absolute classic.

Track Nine: Cloud Number Nine. One of Bryan’s more recent releases is a pleasant song in it’s own way but isn’t a patch on the one that was just on. Again, the main strengths here are the lyrics and the way Bryan sings them. This one has a slightly more modern sound to it, rather than relying on guitars and drums. It’s no Summer of… but it’s still pretty damn good.

Track Ten: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Ok, here we go. You all know this one, it just doesn’t need an introduction. Kevin Costner ran around in tights with a bow and arrow and everyone thought all the women who saw it were impressed but really we were listening to (the considerably more attractive) Bryan Adams sing the theme song. Kevin who?

Four months at Number One here in the UK. Four months! It seems impossible when you listen to modern charts but that’s what this song achieved. Yes, it’s another slow one but good God is it good. “Look into my eyes – you will see what you mean to me”…excuse me while
I grab a tissue.

Ladies, do not listen to this when you’ve broken up with someone. You will be crying for hours.

The song starts quite gently and gradually builds up into a staggeringly emotional musical masterpiece that, however many times you hear it on the radio, you still listen to and realise you’ve forgotten a bit. Admittedly, when it was Number One it was on airplay overkill but now you hear it just often enough to fall in love with it all over again.

Hey, you can always imagine Bryan’s singing it to you having promised to feed you chocolates afterwards…sorry male readers! I won’t go down that road again, I promise, come back!

Track Eleven: Back To You. Something with a bit more kick is essential here because there is no love song in the history of the world that can follow the last track and hold up to it. Lively, optimistic, upbeat, charming and damn satisfying is how I would describe this one. I particularly love the line “Like a star guides a ship across the ocean, that’s how your love can take me home back to you”. The best foot-tapper on this album and one of my personal favourites.

Track Twelve: When You’re Gone. Whoa! Sting was one thing, Rod slightly out of place, but Mel C from the Spice Girls? Argh!

This was released when Mel C was trying to launch her “rockier” image away from the Spice Girls when they all started to do solo material. She’s still possibly the most credible one of the lot of them but still, she’s a long way from Bryan’s league and the mind boggles at why he agreed to do this song with her.

Having said that, whilst in theory it sounds like the most ridiculous pairing ever – the one of the best songwriters and performers in the world and one-fifth of the tackiest pop act in history – the song isn’t that bad. Let’s face it, having heard Mel C’s part of
it you don’t have very high expectations anyway, do you? It’s pleasant enough and moves along nicely, Bryan’s voice is the saving grace and the lyrics aren’t bad either. It could have been worse. A lot worse…it could have been Victoria Beckham.

Track Thirteen: Please Forgive Me. Slow stuff to the fore again, not a bad effort by any description but for my liking it’s far too laid back.

At least, it is to start with. Just when you don’t expect it, we get some dramatic guitars thrown in and Bryan perks up a bit (vocally speaking!), but it then plunges back into slow and steady mode again. Hard to get into in that respect, but another great song. If you like that sort of thing.

Track Fourteen: The Only Thing That Looks Good On Me Is You. A sound contender for the Longest Title You Can Come Up With, Ever crown, but sod the title. This is a great song! Funky, quirky and damn satisfying. “The only thing I want, the only thing I need, the only thing I choose, the only thing that looks good on me…is you”. I don’t know if it would sound so damn good if it wasn’t Bryan singing it, but this song is a classic.

Track Fifteen: Inside Out. The last track, gentle and lyrically touching and really rather gorgeous. You have to hand it to the guy, he’s good at the love songs, and this one proves it. Listening to the lyrics, you kind of regain a bit of faith in relationships, and are left with a bit of optimism. Oh, just do us women a favour and clone this guy!

Seriously, all attraction to Bryan left out of it, this is an album that has a lot of diversity, even more so when you take into account the hidden track, which is the club-track collaboration with Ibiza regular Chicaine, ‘Don’t Give It Up’. The thought of using a computer to mess up Bryan’s voice makes me want to hit a wall at times, but as dancey, clubby music goes this isn̵
7;t a bad attempt. If it proves anything it is that Bryan is an incredibly versatile and talented guy who never needs to worry about being cast as a love-sick crooner or ageing rocker. He’s just a very, very cool guy.

To be honest, any qualms I've written above about any of the songs are simply based on personal taste, not the quality of the music which I can't avoid admitting is flawless. Every song on here has great qualities and is put together seamlessly and is just waiting for someone who appreciates it to come along and think "wow".

All in all, this is a really solid collection of songs for anyone of any age, which you could listen to alone, when the girl’s are round, dance to with someone you lurve (aaw), or just when collapsing on the sofa after work, which all the time reminds you how damn talented this guy is. Makes you want to go see him live because anyone who sounds this good recorded has got to be incredible in person.

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