Suzi Quatro

There are a lot of artists whose ‘Best of’ would consist of two or three hit singles, two fan favourite album tracks and a whole lot of filler.
This ‘Best of’ features 20 tracks and I don’t think any fan of pop and rock would deny that they are pretty well all essential.

This collection was curated by the lady herself and features tracks from all of her albums for Rak records back in the 70’s. She says of it “I’m excited about my new compilations. It’s not just the hits, which I love, but it also features favourite and important tracks from my albums, with an extensive track by track on the liner notes.”

This goes along with a reissue of 4 of the albums she did for Rak but, for me, this compilation stands up as a pretty damn fine set of songs on its own.

All the hits are there of course – ‘Can The Can’, ’48 Crash’, ‘Skin Tight Skin’, ‘Devil Gate Drive’; all remastered - but you also get ‘Daytona Demon and ‘Cat Size’ showing that she can do more emotive material too.

It is actually really surprising just how well these tracks hold up nearly 40 years after they were laid down and just what a damn good band she had back in the day. Even the original single version of ‘The Wild One’ drives like a supercharged Porsche – amazing to be able to hear just how good a bass player Suzi was too.

Suzi Quatro was a massive influence on artists like Joan Jett who modelled her early image entirely on Quatro, but unlike many influences she really has the chops.

The brattishness of ‘Can The Can’ is coupled with real confidence and deep down Detroit ‘attichood’ and all through this great set I was struck by her playing and self-possession.

Wicked collection and properly definitive.