Thursday, September 17, 2009

Will Young's Greatest Hits


Thanks Paul for informing me that Will Young is releasing a greatest hits collection in November. While I'm a big Will Young fan, I can't help but feel this is a bit premature. I think he needs another album's worth of singles to be able to have a truly stunning set. As it is the set is a rather lean 12 tracks--3 from each album. Nonetheless, even this results in some omissions, for better or worse:

1. Anything Is Possible. Cathy Dennis penned this track for Will, but it was the single's other track--the remake of Westlife's "Evergreen"--that became the hit, while this barely received any attention. Still, it's not bad, although no Will Young "classic" for sure.

2. The Long and Winding Road. This was a #1 hit in 2002--Will's third--and an ill conceived Beatles remake turned love duet with Pop Idol buddy Gareth Gates. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but since then the folly has been revealed time and again.

3. Don't Let Me Down. This was the double-A side with "You and I," but wasn't included on From Now On, making it a rather hard-to-find release (iTunes doesn't have it, for example). It's a rather good song and was actually a slightly bigger hit at radio than "You and I."

4. Love The One You're With/Love Is a Matter of Distance. Friday's Child had only three singles, which was a real shame, for there were so many other potential hits--namely these two singles, the upbeat opening track and one of Will's most lovely ballads.

5. All The Things You Are. Will's forray into the movie musical (Mrs. Henderson Presents) included this song from him. Not bad.

6. Tell Me The Worst. Let It Go was such a good album. If this was a just pop music world, this album would have had 6 singles.

Here's what is included, plus two new tracks:

1. Evergreen
2. Light My Fire
3. You and I
4. Leave Right Now
5. Your Game
6. Friday's Child
7. Switch It On
8. All Time Love
9. Who Am I
10. Changes
11. Grace
12. Let It Go

3 comments:

Myfizzypop said...

i think you are right about the tracklisting being a bit short for someone who has had four albums out - I feel his albums have always been abandoned a bit prematurely. And while i'm interested to see what the bonus tracks are (new songs? unreleased stuff?) i will always take a new album over a greatest hits!

Cook In / Dine Out said...

It was particularly odd with Friday's Child, when he was at his popularity peak, that there wasn't a fourth single. Equally odd that despite being less popular with Let It Go, they actually did get to a fourth single (although I think "Tell Me the Worst" was a digital only release, isn't that right?).

rcLoy said...

I fell in love with Will Young with his song Leave Right Now. His latest album, Let It Go is one of my faves last year, I never thought that he got that much of a hit to release a greatest hits album. I'm so going to check it out.