Best of the best ofs

As High Fidelity’s Rob so rightly said, there’s an art to making a good compilation, a point that the makers of the Manic Street Preachers’ Forever Delayed (Sony) have missed slightly. By abandoning the chronological approach in favour of a completely random tracklisting, the album moves wildly from period to period, robbing the record of any sort of cohesion.

While there are some undoubted highlights (‘Motown Junk’, ‘Little Baby Nothing’, ‘A Design For Life’), there are also enough duds to suggest that the walk has not always matched the talk. The obligatory couple of new tracks are alright, but it’s hard to see this winning over a whole new body of casual fans.

The fact that the band have seemingly distanced themselves from the whole thing either suggests their distain for the project or the possible end of the road.

The latter option also looks a distinct possibility for Pulp, currently labeless and having one last hurray with Hits (Universal). This one does tell a story of sorts, from the end of their long years in the indie wilderness through the glory days of ‘Common People’, the less comfortable ‘This Is Hardcore’ period and a recent resurgence. If this is to be it, then ‘The Last Day Of The Miners Strike’ is a fine way to bow out. The band maintain that they’ll “be in touch”.

We’ll see.

No such problems for David Bowie, currently enjoying the ritual – but this time justified – return to form. The Best Of Bowie (EMI) is pretty much the business, charting an extraordinary career from ‘Space Oddity’ to this year’s ‘Slow Burn’ over two discs. There have been Bowie compilations before and there’ll be more in the future, but this does the job very nicely indeed.