release date: Oct. 25, 1994
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: various
label: Demon Records - nationality: England, UK
Best of compilation album released on Costello's former record label with songs spanning from his earliest albums to Blood & Chocolate (1986) after which he signed with Warner Bros. And just this label had earlier in '94 (Mar. 8) released Costello's Brutal Youth, which had been seen as a "return" despite having already released two other albums on Warner since his '86 album; however, both Spike (1989) and Mighty Like a Rose (1991) had been reviewed and possibly intentionally released as bolder mainstream albums, and Brutal Youth was compared to his more power pop-shaped '86 release.
This is not the best "best of" album you'll find with Costello, in fact there are so many best of albums claiming to contain his "hits" that it seems like an endless project to list them all. The first official album making the attempt to compile a best of album is The Best of Elvis Costello and The Attractions from 1985 issued on Columbia exclusively for the North American market containing 19 tracks, and a similar, though not identical, release The Best of Elvis Costello - The Man issued by Demon for the UK and Japanese markets containing 18 tracks. These two issues originally had the same front cover as background but "only" twelve tracks in common and a completely different playlist. Later issues of the UK version have a different cover. In 2007, Hip-O-Records issued the album The Best of Elvis Costello - The First 10 Years compiled by Costello himself, which basically is a (fine) combination of the two former best of albums containing 22 tracks.
Demon also released the extensive album Girls + £ ÷ Girls = $ & Girls (commonly referred to as Girls, Girls, Girls) subtitled "The Songs of Elvis Costello / The Sounds of Elvis Costello & The Attractions" from 1989 containing 47 tracks, and in 1999: The Very Best of Elvis Costello containing 42 tracks. Apart from these, Demon and associated labels have released various compilation albums, and also Warner / WEA has issued a number of Costello compilations like Malice and Magic (1994) and Extreme Honey (The Very Best of the Warner Bros. Years) (1997).
Forced to choose just one of the many best of albums, I would go with the 2007 Hip-O-Records issue.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]
