The Very Best of Cat Stevens

The remastering is excellent and the song selection is solid. All of his biggest Seventies hits are here: "Wild World," "Peace Train," "Morning Has Broken," "Oh Very Young" and the Sam Cooke cover "Another Saturday Night." [However, you don't get ALL of his Top 40 hits. In addition to the two aforementioned hits dropped from the original Greatest Hits package, this also leaves off "The Hurt" (No. 31) from 1973. Other songs missing in action are his minor hits from the late Seventies--"Banapple Gas," "Bad Breaks" and "Was Dog a Doughnut."]

Also worth noting is Cat Stevens first charted in his native England four years before his intitial success in the U.S. with "Wild World" in 1971. In fact, Stevens charted in the U.K. six times between 1966 and 1970. Only "Matthew & Son," "The First Cut Is the Deepest" (a hit for Rod Stewart in 1977)and "Lady D'Arbanville" are from this period.

During the singer-songwriter era of the Seventies, Stevens held his own with the likes of James Taylor, Jim Croce, Carole King and Harry Nilsson, and created a substantial body of work. His introspective lyrics, catchy melodies and maple syrup voice were a winning combination. The twenty songs on this disc represent all facets of his career and if you're going to limit your purchases to one Cat Stevens CD, this is the one two own. RECOMMENDED


The 5th Time's The Charm   November 14, 2000
50 out of 53 found this review helpful

It is impossible to compile a single-disc greatest-hits compilation for Cat Stevens that will come close to satisfying all of his admirers. The Very Best of Cat Stevens is the fifth major attempt to do so and, like its predecessors, it is challenged by its subject's success.

Stevens was practically a permanent resident of the British and American pop charts from his debut as a teen star in 1966 until the late '70s when his conversion to Islam prompted him to abandon his music career. Add to the hit singles the many enormously popular album tracks and it becomes extremely difficult to identify the "very best" 20 songs.

The first Greatest Hits was released in 1975, too early to include material from the last three albums. It also ignored the early pop albums, excluding catchy hits like "Matthew & Son" and "Lady D'Arbanville." The second volume was dominated by weaker album tracks from the late albums. The Stevens edition of the A&M Classics series suffered from some peculiar song choices ("New York Times"?) and it, too, ignored the early albums. Remember Cat Stevens - The Ultimate Collection is the longest of the five (24 tracks) and may be the most comprehensive.

But The Very Best of Cat Stevens, released just a year later, has several advantages that make it more appealing. To begin with, it is the only compilation to sequence chronologically songs from every one of Stevens' albums, including the experimental Foreigner. It also contains the delightful folk creed "The Wind," which was a glaring omission from the so-called Ultimate Collection.

Most significantly, it contains the previously unreleased "I've Got a Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old." Stevens recorded a demo of the song during the Mona Bone Jakon sessions in 1970, but it never saw the light of day until it was remixed for this collection.

Perhaps this was because it was considered too eccentric for public consumption, straddling the line between the hook-rich pop of Stevens' '60s records and the groundbreaking folk-rock of his '70s efforts. If so, the public was vastly underestimated. The song is a buried treasure that fits in perfectly in the company of Stevens' best work.


The Very Best Of An Incredibly Talented Artist!   September 3, 2000
Barron Laycock (Temple, New Hampshire United States)
35 out of 38 found this review helpful

Whoops! Yeah, I know. How can anyone still favor the music from someone whose own recent public pronouncements belie the dreamy humanism and tolerance of the lyrics in these songs? Still, after thirty years of listening to the songs included on this album, while it still puzzles me that anyone capable of creating such beautiful lyrics, enchanting melodies, and memorable arrangements could now be so rigid and intolerant of others, I cannot help but love the work itself. I have to admit that the music remains, folks, a monument to late sixties-early seventies consciousness, a pillar to the edifice of the whole notion that we could change the world and make it a better, more tolerant, and more humane place to live in. To me, this compilation of his greatest hits celebrates those ideas as much as the artist himself.

All the music here is wonderful, and I can listen to the album without missing a lovely beat, from "The Wind" to "The First Cut Is The Deepest" to the magical and breath-taking "Peace Train". My own personal favorites are "Oh Very Young" with its simply stated intimacies and crisp musicianship, the soft yet soaring "Morning Has Broken", a song I have never heard a harsh word against, and of course, "Moonshadow", another in a series of similar unforgettable Cat Steven's catchy musical confections. I also love "Hardheaded Woman", "Wild World', and the very early and incredibly somber rendition of "Lady D'Arbanville". There is simply no getting around how uniquely talented he was. This terrific greatest hits album is a reminder that sometimes art rises above the level of its all too human creator. Enjoy!