Ultimate

A greatest-hits record is a strange thing to review. You already know whether you like Bryan Adams, and this tells you the same thing twenty-one times. Run To You, Summer Of ’69, Cuts Like A Knife, the Robin Hood song that would not leave the radio in 1991. All here, out of order, which bothers me more than it should.

The two new ones are Ultimate Love and Please Stay, recorded to give longtime fans a reason to buy the hits a fourth time. They’re fine. They’re also the two I skip.

What’s left is the case for Bryan Adams as a singles machine, which he was, more than people give him credit for. It’s Only Love with Tina Turner still holds up. All For Love is still three famous men trying to out-sincere each other, and mostly pulling it off.

Not the record I’d hand somebody first. But the songs are the songs, and on vinyl they’re loud in the right way.