20TH CENTURY MASTERS: THE BEST OF CANO

This is a better, and longer, collection than the other greatest-hits collection listed here on PA ('Spirit of the North'). Many (but not all!) all the songs on this are very good or great, so musically together it is probably in the 4-star range. However, a greatest-hits album has to be judged not only on the musicality of the songs, but also the representativeness of the selections. And on this point, this collection (like the other above-mentioned collection) does fare as well. Of the 12 tracks on this album, 5 are from the first album. There are only 2 songs from their second album ('Au Nord De Notre Vie'), 3 songs from their fourth ('Rendezvous'), and only one from their third album 'Eclipse'. There is nothing from their last two albums. While I don't think the latter two albums are very good, they still merit some acknowledgement given those were released in 1981 and 1985 and this collection was released much later in 2003. But even more, this collection is missing a number of worthy tracks from the albums they did cover (such as the song "Mon Pays" from their second album, 'Earth Mother' and 'Moon Lament' from their third, and 'Entente' or 'Other Highways' from their fourth). Indeed, while some of the tracts they selected from the third and fourth albums are great (eg "Bienvenue 1984" and "L'Autobus de la Pluie") the other tunes they chose from the fourth album are some of the weaker ones on that album ("Rebound" and "Sometimes the Blues"). Given the over-weight on the first album, and the missing good tracks from the others, I would on balance recommend picking up their first album instead of this collection, if you want a good entry into this group. The main reason to pick up this collection is for their single "Carrie", which was not released on any album and thus is now quite rare. However, it is also the worst song in the collection, so it is not much of a draw (it was also released in the earlier greatest-hits album). But I do think this one is better than the other greatest hits album ('Spirit'...). On balance, 3 stars.