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
51 out of 52 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.


My favorite artist, period   December 27, 2000
29 out of 33 found this review helpful

"Tea for the Tillerman," "Teaser and the Firecat" and "Catch Bull at Four" are 1, 2 and 3 on my all-time Top 10 albums list. With nary a clunker on all three, I recommend this anthology because 10 of its songs are from those albums. But that means, if this is your introduction to him, you have much brilliance waiting for you in the original discs should you like what you hear here.

Cat Stevens was once Steve Giorgiou, and Cat paid homage to his Greek parentage beautifully with "Rubylove" (Teaser and the Firecat) and "O Caritas" (Catch Bull at Four). The first is a lively, joyous folk tune-love song, the second an austere, haunting prayer that is as different from the first as it is from "Morning Has Broken." Again, there is so much substance to each Cat Stevens release that no anthology can truly capture the "best." The man had range, all right, and a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of curiosity and spirituality that informed all of his music. That he was on a quest for personal meaning was obvious throughout his work, and when at last he found in Islam what he had been searching for, we lost a great artist and Islam gained a very deep and profound soul.

I am among the reviewers who saw the 2-hour VH-1 bio on Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam this past fall, wherein he attempted to set the record straight about the whole, horrible Rushdie disaster. He was a student of the Koran, quoting scripture to a reporter as one might quote The Ten Commandments, and believing (naively, perhaps) that the press would deal with him honestly and objectively. The next day the headlines screamed "Cat Says Kill Rushdie!" It sounds to me like a tragic misunderstanding, or a cynical set-up, or both.

I have seen remarks here that suggest he will never be forgiven by some of the folks who turned on him then. All these years and a few new revelations later, I see plenty of room for second thoughts on the subject. But whether you wish to judge his art on a political basis is your choice. If you do, allow me to share my favorite recent political quote: "If you have ever said or done anything you wish you could amend, get on the ferry. The rest of you can walk across the lake."