Eurythmics Best

It may have taken them a little while to get going, but when the Eurythmics hit their stride with their second album Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), they began a hit streak that defined them as one of the most commercially successful and musically satisfying new wave bands of the '80s. For six years, the group was reliable, turning out at least one great single on each album, none of which sounded identical, yet all were recognizable as the work of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox. Greatest Hits summarizes those glorious years and while it misses a couple of hits – a bad thing when the sublime "Right by Your Side" is concerned, but not when "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)" is – it remains an excellent collection.

It may have taken them a little while to get going, but when the Eurythmics hit their stride with their second album Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), they began a hit streak that defined them as one of the most commercially successful and musically satisfying new wave bands of the '80s. For six years, the group was reliable, turning out at least one great single on each album, none of which sounded identical, yet all were recognizable as the work of Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox. Greatest Hits summarizes those glorious years and while it misses a couple of hits – a bad thing when the sublime "Right by Your Side" is concerned, but not when "Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four)" is – it remains an excellent collection.

Preceding the elaborate 2005 reissues of Eurythmics' eight proper albums by a month, The Ultimate Collection narrowly trumps 1991's Greatest Hits since it features remastered sound and a more extensive track list. While it does not contain "Don't Ask Me Again," opting to instead select a couple merely decent highlights from 1999's Peace, two new (unplanned) recordings add value for any kind of fan. Bookending the disc, "I've Got a Life" is powerful disco-pop with Annie Lennox strongly present over a bursting multi-tiered arrangement, while the relatively low-key "Was It Just Another Affair" has more in common with late-period Everything But the Girl.

Preceding the elaborate 2005 reissues of Eurythmics' eight proper albums by a month, The Ultimate Collection narrowly trumps 1991's Greatest Hits since it features remastered sound and a more extensive track list. While it does not contain "Don't Ask Me Again," opting to instead select a couple merely decent highlights from 1999's Peace, two new (unplanned) recordings add value for any kind of fan. Bookending the disc, "I've Got a Life" is powerful disco-pop with Annie Lennox strongly present over a bursting multi-tiered arrangement, while the relatively low-key "Was It Just Another Affair" has more in common with late-period Everything But the Girl.

The Best Singles of All Time 200 is the most popular singles over forty years, since the 60s till 90s

October of 2008 already saw a Best of Annie Lennox hit the streets in Europe, and in early 2009 those of us Stateside get the Annie Lennox Collection, which boasts enough hit singles to keep the punters happy, as well as a few keen B-sides to make the late-coming collectors to Lennox's work pick this up as well. While ubiquitous hits such as "Walking on Broken Glass" and "Sing" are included here, it's great that the set's compilers thought to add non-full-length selections such as "Love Song for a Vampire" to this mix. Her stellar covers such as the reading of Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" and the Freeman-Hughes standard "No More "I Love You's" are in the mix as well, making this a very well-rounded collection.