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After failing to attract any new listeners with 1996's All That Useless Beauty, his best album in years, Elvis Costello, the era's most gifted pop composer, bids a less-than-fond adieu to his label of the past decade with this collection of personal favorites from the period.
His solitary hit, "Veronica," sparkles anew, and "So Like Candy," lost in the over-thought, overwrought Mighty like A Rose, now sounds something like a classic.
The best song in the set, the unsettling ballad "My Dark Life," never appeared on a Costello album; it's culled from the otherwise forgettable Songs in the Key of X set.
And lest you assumed Costello had discarded his famous sarcasm, note that the only new song included, The Bridge I Burned," was born as a cover of Prince's "Pop Life." When the Artist refused Costello permission to record it Costello turned the track into an ambient dub diatribe on artists who lose touch with reality.
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