Best of Exile album for sale by Exile was released May 10, 1990 on the Curb label. All songs written or co-written by members of Exile except "Kiss You All Over," "Heart And Soul" and "You Thrill Me" (Mike Chapman/Nicky Chinn). Best of Exile CD music contains a single disc with 10 songs.
Even before their debut album, Happiness, became one of the fastest-selling albums in the U.K. in 2010, Manchester duo Hurts already had a rabid online fan base, stoked by several arch, expertly art-directed videos that the group self-produced, which captured the eye while showcasing the band's mix of '80s synth pop melodicism, Krautrock angularity, and '90s Hi-NRG balladry. The videos expertly juxtaposed a Helmut Newton-esque black-and-white aesthetic with the group's musical love of dance-club dramatics, á la Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Pet Shop Boys, eventually attracting the attention of Euro-pop diva Kylie Minogue, who ended up singing on the track "Devotion."
Versatile is Van Morrison's 38th album, and follows the release of the excellent R&B and blues covers collection Roll with the Punches by less than three months. Like its predecessor, it's primarily a covers set, but its focus is on jazz and pop standards from the Great American Songbook with six originals added for good measure. Historically, these experiments haven't worked for rock artists: Rod Stewart delivered five overblown, badly sung collections from the canon, and Bob Dylan delivered five discs of highly idiosyncratic interpretations of the stuff. Even Boz Scaggs tried them with very mixed results. Morrison fares better than his peers due to experience – standards have peppered his set lists for decades. Versatile is not a pillar in his catalog, but it's not a cynical cash-in, either.
Van Morrison's 2016 album Keep Me Singing included the hard blues track "Goin' Down to Bangor," a tune that directly foreshadowed Roll with the Punches, a set of five originals and ten covers drenched in Chicago-style blues. He also heavily engages in collaboration here with appearances by Jeff Beck, Chris Farlowe, Jason Rebello, Paul Jones, and Georgie Fame.