The Story So Far: The Very Best Of Rod Stewart (2CD) [Original recording remastered]

I apologise now for such dumb thoughts - the music that I hear on these two disks is beyond cool! Disk one is called "A Night Out" (Rather, cheeky, sexy & flamboyant!) Its got Maggie May, Baby Jane, Hot Legs, What Am I Gonna Do? (Woa so groovy!), Rhythm Of My Heart, Downtown Train, Oh La La (with The Corrs), It Takes Two (with Tina Turner!) & many more. I had a no idea I would love each & every song - & I had no idea just how many Rod Stewart songs I know!

The second disk is called "A Night In" & it has got those gut wrenching ballads, including: Sailing, I Don't Wanna Talk About It, The First Cuts The Deepest, You're In My Heart, Every Beat Of My Heart, Ruby Tuesday (Always admired this song - but this version is even more awesome!), Waltzing Matilda, All For Love (with Sting & Bryan Adams) & one exceptionally beautiful track called The Killing Of Georgie, which pays tribute to a young gay guy - & all he endures until his death at such an young age - very, very moving.

On a personal note, I am Scottish & some of these songs remind me about certain things. But more so, they all remind me about all the things that matter most in life - companionship, loyalty, love, going home ...(& timeless rock songs!) I can't help noticing that most of these magical songs are written by Rod himself.

Its easy to throw five stars about - I've done it in the past - but I promise that this title is most worthy. All the tracks seem to be the originals & they say "Digitally Re-mastered" - another plus. The package has even got half decent sleeve notes - unusual these days. If you want a criticism then I say that one song that is missed from this compilation is When We Were The New Boys (1998) - it really sums everything up; but the disks run for almost 80 mins each - no room for more I guess!

PURE ENJOYMENT >> A MUST HAVE!
(In my humble opinion...)

Rod's earlier stuff is obviously head and shoulders above the other stuff, especially 'You Wear It Well', 'Stay With Me' and 'The Killing Of Georgie'. It's brilliant to see 'In A Broken Dream' on here too, it's a very chilled and smooth track with some wicked guitar work.

My only gripe with the album is, predictably, the stuff they've overlooked. Rod's got decent versions of 'Get Back', 'Cigarettes And Alcohol', and 'Your Song' in his back catalogue, but they've been forgotten in favour of rubbish like 'Love Touch', as has 'Handbags And Gladrags', which is just a criminal decision.

Still recommemded, though!