Currently listening to The Best of The Corrs, which came out about a month ago, and about which I have a few gripes:

1) Although The Corrs are probably one of my most favorite bands on the planet, they only have three studio albums under their belts. True, they've been playing for around ten years now, but their albums (Forgiven, Not Forgotten; Talk On Corners; The Corrs: Live; The Corrs: Unplugged; In Blue; and now The Best of The Corrs) still have a young sound to them, and I just don't think that a Best Of album was entirely appropriate. It could have been a decision that was out of their hands, something that Atlantic Records wanted to do. Who knows? The company seems to delight in torturing the fans, releasing different editions of albums with bonus songs or other extras. Talk On Corners was never actually released in the US, only its bastard offspring Talk On Corners: Special Edition, which contains remixes of a bunch of songs of which I had never heard the originals (I bought the special edition before I bought the original, but was able to get the original through Amazon.co.uk). Then around three or four months after In Blue was released, an alternate version became available with three bonus songs on it. It was like I was being punished for being an eager fan. Then, a special edition was released with an entire bonus CD containing four acoustic songs, two new studio songs (which I'm actually not crazy about), and two live songs.

(This reminds me a lot of when I was still collecting comics; a company would put out a comic, and then release a number of other versions of that issue, usually with a fancy foil cover, or some other such nonsense. Then, they would have these massive storyline crossovers which spanned a dozen different titles, all of which (because of the foil wraparound textured covers) now cost around $3.50 each. Marvel was terrible about this. That's when I stopped collecting, cold turkey.)

2) They didn't even bother to go back and remaster the songs. Because of this, they are all at different sound levels and volumes, and none of them match up. They just took the songs straight from the albums, and didn't bother to make them all sound congruous. (And I have to give a big thumbs-up to Barenaked Ladies, who in fact did remaster the songs for their new Best Of album, and it sounds fantastic.)

3) Whoever decided the order for the songs must have been the same guy who decided the song order for Talk On Corners: Special Edition, and who also must be coked out of his mind twenty-four hours a day. The order the songs follow makes a big difference in the enjoyment of an album. The Corrs' first two albums were right on the money, but this one falls short. This would be the order if I was in charge:

1. Would You Be Happier?
2. Make You Mine
3. Breathless
4. Give Me a Reason
5. Irresistible
6. Only When I Sleep
7. Dreams
8. I Never Loved You Anyway
9. All the Love in the World (Remix)
10. Forgiven, Not Forgotten
11. Love to Love You
12. Runaway
13. The Right Time
14. Radio (Unplugged)
15. Lough Erin Shore (Unplugged)

This order goes pretty much from the newest stuff to the oldest stuff, with the best unplugged songs at the end to top it off. Plus, I'm only working with the songs on the album; I probably would have added some different songs, and taken out others. Note that this leaves off So Young (K-Klass Remix), What Can I Do (Tin Tin Out Remix), and Everybody Hurts (Unplugged). The first two are remixes that I hate, that add absolutely nothing to the songs, and the third is a very good cover of the R.E.M. classic, but tonally incongruent with the other songs on the album. But just to show that I don't hate remixes altogether, I like the new version of All the Love in the World. It spices up an otherwise goopy slow love song, of which Andrea tends to write a good amount.

I will say, however, that the two new songs on the album, Would You Be Happier? and Make You Mine, are very good, and I look forward to the next studio album, which The Corrs expect to start recording in earnest at the beginning of 2002.