The Very Best of Japanese Music

The Very Best of Diana Krall collects a nice cross-section of tracks the pianist/vocalist recorded beginning with her 1996 breakthrough album, All for You, and moving through to her 2006 effort From This Moment On. These are largely urbane and stylish recordings that range from her intimate and swinging trio work with guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Christian McBride to her lush orchestral and big-band numbers. While this is primarily a compilation for fans of the sophisticated, jazz standards-oriented Krall, Verve does earn some kudos for including at least one cut from her deeply personal and subsequently not as popular effort The Girl in the Other Room. Also featured are cuts from her stellar 2002 concert album Live in Paris. If you're a fan of straight-ahead jazz with a heavy dash of romance and haven't checked out Krall's work, The Very Best is superb place to start.

Exactly ten years after Dire Straits' first compilation, Money for Nothing, appeared in the stores, their second, Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits, was released. A decade is a significant span of time, and the average band would have produced enough material for an entirely different collection, one that shared no similarities with its predecessor. Dire Straits is not the average band, however, and during those ten years, they released exactly two albums – 1991's On Every Street, their first studio album since Brothers in Arms in 1985, and 1993's On the Night, a live album culled from tapes of the record's supporting tour. Not quite enough new material for a new greatest-hits album, but it had been years since Dire Straits had released an album of any sort (a compilation of BBC sessions snuck into the stores in 1995) – hence the birth of Sultans of Swing.

Go: The Very Best of Moby is not the career-spanning compilation implied by its title. Instead, it's based around 1999's Play, 2002's 18, and 2005's Hotel. With the exception of Everything Is Wrong's ambient epic "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters," Anders Trentemøller's fresh mix of "Go," and a rough-sounding live version of "Feeling So Real," nothing here references Moby's output prior to Play. The one new track, "New York, New York," is a fun Giorgio Moroder-inspired throwaway featuring Debbie Harry.

The 1990 collection The Very Best of Elton John is an excellent 30-track summary of his peak years, running from "Your Song" to "You Gotta Love Someone." In a sense, it's the concise counterpart to the box set To Be Continued, released that same year but spanning four discs and filled with rarities. Although that set has several great songs that aren't here, this set has nothing extraneous – just the biggest hits from a time when John was hitting the U.S. and U.K. Top 40 every single year. There are no American collections that perform the same task, which is a shame because there isn't a better Elton John hits collection than this; if you're looking for all the biggest hits on one album, it's certainly worth the import prices.

There are few images as riveting as Roy Orbison standing completely motionless at the microphone in his trademark dark shades as he climbs the notes of one of his haunting, operatic pop songs, sounding for all the world like an angel stranded on earth and yearning to get back home. From his first recordings in the mid-'50s for Sun Records through his unlikely comeback in the late '80s, Orbison never lost an inch of his astounding vocal range or his knack for writing concise and emotionally nuanced pop ballads that seemed for all the world like mini-operas. This 14-track (there's a 15th CD-R track as well) offers key sides taken from all phases of his career, including samples from his brilliant '60s output ("Oh, Pretty Woman," "Only the Lonely," "Blue Bayou," "It's Over," "Crying") and cuts from his 1989 Mystery Girl album like the well-written and sung "She's a Mystery to Me."