ERASURE HITS! THE VERY BEST OF ERASURE ALBUM MUTE, PLAYGROUND RELEASE: OCTOBER 16 (EUROPE), NOVEMBER 11 (USA), 2003 REVIEW: NOVEMBER 18, 2003

It’s the year 2003 and Erasure apparently thought we needed another compilation album. The band released one a couple of years ago with the name “Pop! The First 20 Hits”, and as you could probably guess, it features the band's first 20 hits. That album gives a very good overview of the band, and after that, the hits haven’t been as many. This new effort understandably focuses a little bit more on the later tracks of their career, but the earlier stuff is on it to some degree as well, even though the first album is only represented by “Oh L’amour”.
So what gives then? Should you put your hard earned money on this, or buy, say, the new Iris album instead? If you ask me - and you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this - Iris is a better bet. If you know Erasure, this is not going to give you anything new, except a new version of “Oh L’amour” that’s not much to write home about. If you don’t know Erasure, you’re better off getting the first collection instead, as it includes more of their absolutely fantastic pop songs from the era when they were at the top of their game.
So don’t get me wrong, I love Erasure, but the value of this release is a bit dubious. I think the idea is that since many people have given up on the band, this disc is for those to hear selections of the new material as well. The problem is that the new songs are much weaker.
The new DVD video collection however, is a different beast altogether, and you can read my take on it in a separate review. The DVD offers 35 singles with good sound quality and of course you can sometimes just listen to the music on the DVD.

JOHAN CARLSSON