Gin Blossoms 20th Century Masters The Best Of (2003)

Part of Universal's massive 20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection, this 12-song budget set draws on songs from Haggard's tenure with MCA. Highlights include "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink," "From Graceland to the Promised Land," "If We're Not Back in Love by Monday," and "Misery and Gin." A nice little chunk of another interesting part of Hag's career.

A series that looks directly at "iconic" artists & bands of the 20th Century; providing their best hits on CD, launched in 1999. Run by Universal Canada, 20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection boasts sales of over 9 million, more than 600 titles in a range of musical styles and being the "most succcessful greatest hits series in canada". Alternations to the series include releases focusing on Christmas themed music.

Sammy Kershaw's 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection essentially gathers the highlights of his two Mercury greatest-hits collections, The Hits: Chapter 1 and The Hits: Chapter 2, presenting a decent mix of early singles, like "Don't Go Near the Water," "She Don't Know She's Beautiful," and "Haunted Heart," and more recent hits like "Love of My Life" and "Vidalia."

Vanessa Williams managed to turn the disgrace of losing her Miss America title into a pretty good career as an actress, singer, and annoying shill for Radio Shack. The Best of Vanessa Williams, part of Mercury's 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection series, focuses on the vocal aspects of her talents and rounds up 11 of her hits for the label recorded between 1988 and 1997. She has two distinct specialties: the big ballad and the slinky, hip-hop-inspired dance track. Her biggest ballad is the smooth and somewhat saccharine "Save the Best for Last." It spent five weeks at number one in 1991 and was a real career-maker.

There is no shortage of Marianne Faithfull collections, but the compact, digitally remastered, 11-track 20th Century Masters set comes close to being the best document of her post-comeback period, which began with 1979's Broken English. That addictively eccentric album is well-represented here with the title track, Shel Silverstein's "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan," and John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" making up the three leadoff tracks. Faithfull's '80s versions of "Sister Morphine" (which she co-wrote with the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards) and "As Tears Go By" are also here, along with her exotic cover of Patti Smith's "Ghost Dance" and the anti-ballad "So Sad."

Brenda Holloway is one of the unsung heroes of the Motown story. She had a soulful, gritty voice; stunning good looks; great songs (some of which she wrote herself); but no hits. Her signature song was her drop-dead ballad "Every Little Bit Hurts," and she also wrote and recorded the original of "You Made Me So Very Happy," later a hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears. Both of those songs are on this collection, as well as nine other solid cuts by Holloway, making this a good collection for Motown and soul fans who want to check out this fine singer.

Any Grace Jones fan can quickly see that her Millennium Collection was slapped together with little care for telling her story. Sad really, since no compilation has ever captured the whole career of the underrated artist well. Basically, it's a one-disc version of Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions with "La Vie en Rose" tacked on as the only representation of her early disco years. The Compass Point years were great, with Sly & Robbie providing the groovy reggae backbeat and Jones supplying the European iciness. The cosmopolitan and paranoid versions of Roxy Music's "Love Is the Drug," the Normal's "Warm Leatherette," and the Pretenders' "Private Life" are all excellent.

This collection finds the fascinating video for "Cherish," both a romantic and philosophical song suggestively set in a Utopian afterlife on a beach. "Joanna," possibly the sweetest music video ever, finds the group gracefully serenading a middle-aged waitress as she recalls tender years of being wooed in the 1950s…

This midline-priced compilation attempts to survey Barry White's recording career from 1973-1999, giving equal weight to different periods of that time as if they were equally successful. That's what can happen when the artist is involved in the selection of a compilation; White is credited as compilation producer along with Universal's Harry Weinger in what may be his final contemporary album credit (he died while the disc was in production).

Although they began as an artsy prog rock band, Styx would eventually transform into the virtual arena rock prototype by the late '70s and early '80s, due to a fondness for bombastic rockers and soaring power ballads. The seeds for the band were planted in another Chicago band during the late '60s, the Tradewinds, which featured brothers Chuck and John Panozzo (who played bass and drums, respectively), as well as acquaintance Dennis DeYoung (vocals, keyboards).