New Mick Jagger compilation – fine collection from an under-rated solo artist

Mick Jagger’s new compilation album, The Very Best Of Mick Jagger, released on Monday, is virtually invisible on the English High Street. Several supermarkets I shop in simply don’t have it.

Great pity because it’s a fine album. I bought mine on Monday (Morrison’s, £9.77), in preference to the new Dylan, new Springsteen and new Joni the Eco-Warrior albums. Apart its delicious assembly of strong tracks from Jagger's four solo albums, the bonus DVD and liner notes make it a contender for Music for Grown-Ups album of the year.

I used to go along with the conventional wisdom that Mick Jagger's solo outings are less than vital. Until, that is, I heard Michael's version of Long Black Veil, the traditional song which dominates the Chieftains' outstanding duets album of the same name.

Some Stones fans even argue that Keith Richards' solo albums, notably Talk Is Cheap, are superior. Ludicrous, rockist tosh: I find Keefe's solo outings squirm-inducing.

Jagger is under-appreciated as a musician because all the other stuff - the women, the celebrity, the show biz - gets in the way, obscuring an outstanding vocal talent. But listen carefully, with an open mind, to his solo material - the four official albums, the film sound tracks (Performance, Alfie), and the guest appearances (Peter Tosh, David Bowie, Tina Turner...) - and Jagger can be seen as a nonpareil contemporary musician: a rock singer from the top drawer, especially on ballads. And an intermittently good writer, even without the other Glimmer Twin.


Gerry Smith