The Very Best of 1989-2023 is a career spanning compilation from Scottish pop/rock band Texas. As an all encompassing look at their career, this record features all of their greatest hits, including "Summer Son," "I Don't Want a Lover," and "Black-Eyed Boy."© Liam Martin /TiVo

The Beach Boys have kicked off their 60th anniversary celebrations with a huge retrospective comprising of three records and 80 tracks. There’s no shortage of material—afterall, this group (which was formed in 1961 by the Wilson brothers) released a whopping nine albums between 1963 and 1965 alone! This release is based on their greatest hits album, Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys (2003), so as you might expect it contains all their biggest tracks (Get Around, Surfin’ USA, Surfin Safari, Fun Fun, and the timeless Good Vibrations). They released their first single (and first hit), Surfin, in December 1961, and the doo-wop track immediately attracted the attention of Capitol Records, who would transform the song into a real money-making machine. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 60 years since we signed to Capitol Records and released our first album Surfin’ Safari”, the group explains in a joint statement. “We were just kids in 1962 and could have never dreamed about where our music would take us, that it would have such a big impact on the world, still be loved, and continue to be discovered by generation after generation.” This release was overseen by official Beach boys archivists Mark Linettand and Alan Boyd, and it’s just perfect for the summer. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Though Supertramp eventually broke through in the U.S. as radio-friendly pop/rockers, they started out in the prog rock mode, turning out lengthy songs full of fanciful instrumental interludes. Even at their proggiest, though, they always interjected a discernible Beatlesque pop sensibility that kept them well away from the excesses often associated with prog rock. The Very Best of Supertramp offers a handy career overview of the band's stylistic evolution. "Crime of the Century" shows the group at its most expansive and conceptual, but the bulk of this collection is in fact occupied by concise, well-crafted tunes full of infectious melodies, propulsive keyboards, and the tasty interjections of John Anthony Helliwell's saxophone. By the time they'd gotten around to their 1980s hit "It's Raining Again," Supertramp had fully transformed into a straight-ahead pop group, their McCartney-like tendencies coming fully to the fore. For most former art rockers, this might have been a woeful development, but in the case of the already-popwise Supertramp, it was a blessing, making this anthology a pleasure all the way down the line.© Jim Allen /TiVo

Released to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Frank Sinatra's death, Nothing But the Best is indeed one of the best single-disc compilations ever released on Sinatra. This isn't a career overview, however, since it begins with his inaugural Reprise recordings circa 1960 and surveys the rest of the '60s (including only two tracks not from the '60s). This was the age of Sinatra as the hard-swinging Chairman of the Board, illustrated perfectly by "Luck Be a Lady" and "My Kind of Town." But it was also the age of wistful, middle-aged material like "Summer Wind," "Strangers in the Night," and, of course, "It Was a Very Good Year." And it was also the age when Sinatra had the freedom to record with everyone he wanted to record with, whether it was Count Basie or Antonio Carlos Jobim or his daughter Nancy (the latter on the 1967 chart-topper "Somethin' Stupid"). All of those periods are represented on Nothing But the Best, which takes its place above the best previous Reprise collection, Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years, even though it somehow omits one of his classics, "Love and Marriage." For this compilation, Reprise also commissioned new 2008 remasters of each track, which sound better than any previous, and added a new bonus track: a version of "Body and Soul" with a vocal recorded in 1984 laid over a 2007 arrangement by Torrie Zito and Frank Sinatra, Jr.© John Bush /TiVo

There's one thing wrong with The Very Best of Daryl Hall & John Oates, and it's minor -- the promotional 12" mix of "Adult Education" is included in favor of the 7" version. This isn't a big deal and it doesn't mar what is the best overview of Hall & Oates' RCA years, the era when they became the biggest-selling duo in the history of rock. If the Atlantic years were more adventurous, dabbling in folk and album rock, The Very Best of demonstrates the virtues of consistency, since these blue-eyed soul songs rank among the very finest singles (and songs) of their time. And Hall & Oates weren't unadventurous, either, since they deftly blended elements of new wave, contemporary soul, and soft rock into their signature sound. Most impressively, smaller hits like "Wait for Me" and the splendid "Did It in a Minute" (easily one of the greatest songs they ever cut) more than hold their own alongside familiar items like "Sara Smile," "You Make My Dreams," "Private Eyes," and "Maneater." Hall & Oates may not have been hip, but they made addictive soul-pop that not only rocketed to the top of the charts but has stood the test of time as some of the best pop made during the early '80s.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In the summer of 1997, Puff Daddy took "I'll Be Missing You," a sappy reworking of "Every Breath You Take," to the top of the charts across the world; it became the biggest rap single in history. The success of "I'll Be Missing You" also helped to make the Police hip again among both rock and rap artists. So, what better way to celebrate the occasion -- as well as the 20th anniversary of the Police's first album -- than to release another compilation, this time combining highlights from the Police and Sting's solo career? The Very Best of Sting & the Police does just that, compiling 14 songs in a seemingly random chronological order. The Police cuts are generally classics, but there are several big hits left off, which should probably be expected for an integrated collection like this. There's plenty of good music on Sting's solo records, but the selection here emphasizes his MOR side instead of some of his more ambitious material. Obviously, that selection is designed to snag a mature, 30-something audience, which makes the inclusion of Puff Daddy's remix of "Roxanne" (included in both its original and remixed incarnations) a little puzzling, since that strives to appeal to a younger audience. Then again, you don't really expect coherence from a collection that simply wants to cash in at the right moment. While it's hard to ignore the fact that this disc isn't necessary, the music itself is good, and certain casual fans may find this useful. But anyone following Sting or the Police for any length of time will find The Very Best Of... superfluous. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Epic/Legacy's 2005 release All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra is the latest installment in the seemingly endless series of ELO comps. Since it follows 2003's handy single-disc The Essential Electric Light Orchestra by merely two years, it's easy to wonder what distinguishes this from the other ELO collections on the market, and whether it was necessary to release another single-disc set so quickly after the last. The biggest differences between All Over the World and Essential is that the 2005 release has some very nice but altogether too brief liner notes from Jeff Lynne along with five more tracks than the 15-track 2003 release. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's a better album, however. While it does contain the terrific "Showdown," which was missing from Essential, All Over the World is inexplicably missing ELO's first American Top Ten single, "Can't Get It out of My Head," along with such other key tracks as "Do Ya," "Calling America," "Roll Over Beethoven," "10538 Overture," and "Boy Blue." Although the presence of "Xanadu" and such album tracks as "The Diary of Horace Wimp" make up for some of these absences, there are too many good songs missing to make this a pick over Essential, which has a higher ratio of hits. That said, All Over the World has most of the big songs -- "Mr. Blue Sky," "Evil Woman," "Don't Bring Me Down," "Sweet Talkin' Woman," "Turn to Stone," "Hold on Tight," "Livin' Thing," "Ma-Ma-Ma Belle," "Strange Magic," and "Rock and Roll Is King" among them -- and it's a good listen, so most casual fans won't be disappointed if this is the only ELO disc they own (although they will sorely miss "Can't Get It out of My Head"). But if you're just about to pick up one ELO disc, get Essential or, better still, 1995's double-disc Strange Magic instead, since they both are tighter, better listens than this and have more of the major hits.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Prior to the 2015 collection Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy: The Very Best of Bad Company, there were only two Bad Company compilations in release: the lean 1985 set 10 from 6, arriving a full six years after their last hit album, and 1999's The Original Bad Company Anthology, a 33-track double-disc set that dug deep into the group's golden years of 1974-1982. Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy occupies a much-needed middle ground, providing 19 songs on a generous single disc. This, like The Original Bad Company Anthology, focuses solely on the six albums Bad Company cut for Swan Song, which means there's nothing from their late-'80s/early-'90s run on Atco, even though "No Smoke Without a Fire," "Holy Water," "If You Needed Somebody," and "How About That" are also owned by WEA and could easily have been included. So, this is all a matter of aesthetics: a decision to highlight the band's big, brawny arena rockers, the best of which ("Can't Get Enough," "Bad Company," "Ready for Love," "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Shooting Star," "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy") are quintessential classic rock staples. The remaining 13 songs here -- including lesser-known singles "Movin' On," "Good Lovin' Gone Bad," "Honey Child," and "Gone, Gone, Gone," along with a representative portion of album cuts -- show how Bad Company offered more than those well-known songs, how they moved with a steady macho assurance that stripped British blues-rock down to the loud, churning basics.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

After gaining control of the Beach Boys' entire catalog (including all the band's post-1969 material), Capitol released two-fers covering their out of print '70s records and a Brian Wilson-selected compilation titled Classics, then later, this hits compilation -- the longest single-disc American collection ever seen. With all but five tracks coming from their 1962-1969 peak, and every one a Top 40 hit, Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys is also the best, a worthy digital-age successor to previous classics like Endless Summer and Greatest Hits, Vol. 1. Though the songs don't appear in chronological order, the compilers improved the concept of a hits compilation by bunching the disc into minisets -- one of classic adolescence songs ("Be True to Your School," "When I Grow Up [To Be a Man]," "In My Room"), one of surfing songs ("Surfin' Safari," "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Surfer Girl"), one of frat-boy classics ("Dance, Dance, Dance," "Barbara Ann"), and another including selections from their masterpiece Pet Sounds ("God Only Knows," "Sloop John B.," "Wouldn't It Be Nice"). Nearly any compilation on an important artist can be argued, but it's the rare one that covers as many bases and leaves out so few classics as Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys.© John Bush /TiVo

Rhino released a double-disc Foreigner anthology called Jukebox Heroes in 2000, so why did they release a double-disc anthology called No End in Sight: The Very Best of Foreigner a mere eight years later? Well, No End in Sight's release does tie into a new tour from Foreigner, but it also bears a significantly cheaper price point than Jukebox Heroes (the 2000 release retailed at $31.98; the 2008 release at $18.98). These are two good practical reasons for a new compilation, but there's another significant difference between the two sets: this new one focuses on Foreigner alone, cutting off the early Spooky Tooth tracks, Lou Gramm hits, and Mick Jones singles that made Jukebox Heroes comprehensive. Whether or not these missing cuts are worth the extra money is totally up to individual listeners, but if they opt for No End in Sight they'll get a thorough overview of Foreigner's career, containing all the hits (indeed, they're almost presented in the exact order they were on Jukebox Heroes) and extending right into the present, as there's a new song called "Too Late" and a 2008 live version of "Say You Will" debuting here. If anything, this set might be a tad too long, as most casual fans will surely be happier with a tight single disc with all the singles, but for listeners who do want to dig deeper, No End in Sight is an affordable swap for Jukebox Heroes.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

There's little question that the Pogues were a seminal band, blessed with great musicians, led by Shane MacGowan, a songwriter of major vision and talent. This was apparent on their initial Stiff singles but it truly blazed on their debut, Rum Sodomy & the Lash, an album that artfully walked the razor's edge between Irish traditionalism and venomous, working-class punk. Though they became more accomplished in later albums, they never strayed from this template. What did change, however, was the group's consistency, largely because their fortunes were tied too closely to those of MacGowan. His talent burned intensely, but like a supernova, it flamed out quickly as the singer sank into an abyss of liquor and drugs. He could still turn out some great moments, but his unpredictability became a major liability for the group's very sanity and they had to let him go. Ironically, without Shane aboard, the Pogues started to drift and they only lasted through one more album before calling it a day, leaving behind a body of work that is very well summarized on the European-only compilation, The Very Best of the Pogues. This concentrates heavily on the group's first three albums, where MacGowan's writing was its sharpest and the band sounded best, but it also picks up highlights from erratic albums like Peace and Love and Hell's Ditch. That's not to say this is a perfect collection; it has a tendency to play toward their traditional folk inclinations, which means it overlooks such wonderful moments as their stomping Motown salute "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah," one of the very best singles of the late '80s and early '90s. Even so, this collection is as good a single-disc retrospective as it could be, and it comes very close to capturing the Pogues at their very best.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Rhino began its elaborate Chicago reissue series in 2002 with The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning, a double-disc set that covers 39 hits from all of Chicago's eras -- from the early jazzy records, through the soft rock hits sung by Peter Cetera, to the post-Cetera adult contemporary records of the '80s, and beyond. It's the first compilation to cover this much ground, actually -- 1991's Group Portrait stopped around Cetera's departure -- and while it may go a little bit further than some would want (a cover of Louis Prima's "Sing, Sing, Sing" from their 1995 neo-swing album closes the set; it happens to feature the Gipsy Kings on support), it nevertheless is very satisfying, since it rounds up all of the hits, and Chicago were at their very best on their hits. For anybody who has been holding on to all three Greatest Hits collections, this will replace them all, since it has almost every song from all three, plus remastered sound. Indeed, this is the definitive word on the group -- perhaps a fan favorite or two is missing, but everything you need is here, in a more concise, user-friendly shape than the Group Portrait box while offering more than any of the hits collections.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Scottish-born singer Jimmy Somerville became a surprise success in the mid-'80s. Instead of being Duran Duran-cute, Jimmy Somerville looked like the average boy next door. Instead of belting out his musical repertoire with a self-conscious urgency to prove himself as a singer (like Rick Astley or George Michael), Somerville possessed a dramatic, piercing falsetto that made the Associates' Billy Mackenzie sound like Tom Waits. But what really made Jimmy Somerville distinctive was his openness about his sexuality. The 1980s was the decade of androgyny, with artists like Annie Lennox, Boy George, and Poison emulating the gender-bending approach of 1970s-era David Bowie. Other performers such as Morrissey and the aforementioned George Michael kept their fans guessing about their sexual orientation. Jimmy Somerville, however, already answered the "is he or isn't he" question before anyone had a chance to ask, and he did so without a trace of mascara. Jimmy Somerville's career began as a member and co-founder of the dance-pop group Bronski Beat, and the here-goes-nothing frankness of the group's debut single, "Smalltown Boy," became an instant sensation, reaching the British Top Ten and becoming an MTV staple in America. The homosexual overtones of Bronski Beat's debut album, The Age of Consent, didn't stop it from becoming a major seller, and the follow-up single, "Why?," also secured a place in the upper reaches of the British pop chart and became an American danceclub favorite. After this initial success, however, Jimmy Somerville departed the group, forming the Communards in 1985 with keyboardist Richard Coles. The Communards' sound was basically a variation of Bronski Beat's disco-influenced dance-pop, and the duo recorded two albums (1986's Communards and 1987's Red) before disbanding, after which Somerville embarked on a sporadic solo career. His lyrical approach detailing the feelings of homosexual alienation are evident in several tracks, particularly the classic "Smalltown Boy" and the Communards' self-explanatory "There's More to Love Than Boy Meets Girl." Somerville can be a remarkably intelligent songwriter, but often his talent is wasted with misguided cover tunes. His faux reggae version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" is a bore, as is his watered-down Sylvester remake, "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)." His rendition of "Comment Te Dire Adieu" is the worst by far, as his campy take on the Serge Gainsbourg classic (previously recorded by Françoise Hardy) can provoke uncontrollable snickering. "Don't Leave Me This Way" and the similarly arranged "Never Can Say Goodbye" (both recorded by the Communards) are the best of the covers, updating the exuberance of the Thelma Houston and Gloria Gaynor disco classics while showcasing Somerville's amazing vocal range. Bronski Beat's pulsating version of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" (featuring Soft Cell vocalist Marc Almond) is also effective. Despite Jimmy Somerville's popularity as a member of two different groups, his lackluster 1989 solo release, Read My Lips, failed to match the success of the Communards or Bronski Beat.[In 1990 London Records released the Singles Collection,, which featured the same seventeen tracks as the Very Best of Jimmy Somerville: Bronski Beat and the Communards, only in a different order.]© William Cooper /TiVo

The Very Best of Talk Talk is the most comprehensive retrospective assembled on the synth group to date, following the band from its new wave origins to its latter-day atmospheric new age recordings. Although the compilation features nothing from 1991's Laughing Stock and all of the songs from 1988's Spirit of Eden are presented in edited versions, the disc remains a good overview of the band's evolution and features all of their big hits, including "Talk Talk" and "Today."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Hard to believe, but Capitol's 2008 collection Idolize Yourself: The Very Best of Billy Idol is only the second Billy Idol hits album to be released in America, following the first -- 2001's Greatest Hits -- by just seven years. Greatest Hits weighed in at 16 tracks and Idolize Yourself spans 18, adding two OK new songs to the mix (the moody "John Wayne" and the ham-fisted "New Future Weapon"), swapping out a live acoustic "Rebel Yell" and a cover of Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" for the latter-day cuts "Speed" and "World Comin' Down," but otherwise this is built upon the same core 14 hits as Greatest Hits. This means that either compilation would serve the needs of most Idol fans well, but Idolize Yourself gets the edge, as the latter-day songs are just a bit better and it's also available in a deluxe edition with a DVD containing almost all of Billy Idol's music videos (two, "Hot in the City" and "Cradle of Love," are present in previously unreleased alternate cuts), which are essential to truly appreciating an artist whose fame was built in large part on his videos.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo