Tina Turner All The Best - The Hits CD

Personnel: Tina Turner; Ike Turner, Bryan Adams.
Capitol's 2005 collection All the Best weighs in at only 18 tracks, which is a little bit light to truly contain all of the best songs Tina Turner has recorded over her lengthy career. And, truth be told, it doesn't come close to containing all of her best -- it concentrates on material she recorded from her '80s comeback, Private Dancer, on, stretching all the way into the '90s but focusing on such '80s hits as "What's Love Got to Do with It," "Private Dancer," "The Best," "Better Be Good to Me," "Typical Male," and "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," adding her biggest '90s hit, "I Don't Wanna Fight," plus a couple of OK but forgettable new songs. The classic 1973 version of "Nutbush City Limits" is here, but it's the only Ike & Tina cut; the version of "Proud Mary" is taken from the soundtrack of her 1993 biopic What's Love Got to Do with It. That highlights the problem with All the Best -- it has many of the big hits, but for one reason or another ignores the music on which her legend is built. Still, as a summation of her comeback and beyond, it's good, and for fans who favor this sound, it's a good disc to have. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The title of Capitol's 2005 Tina Turner best-of collection, ALL THE BEST - THE HITS, is something of a misnomer. With the exception of "Nutbush City Limits" (the set's sole recording by Ike & Tina), and a revisitation of her famous cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary," there is precious little of the singer's classic '60s and early '70s period. Instead, the album is devoted almost exclusively to Turner's '80s comeback hits: "What's Love Got to Do With It," "Better Be Good to Me," and "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," among them.
Turner's voice is in reliably great form throughout, on her most notable hit from the '90s ("I Don't Wanna Fight"), her duet with Bryan Adams ("It's Only Love") and her impressively strong treatments of songs by Al Green ("Let's Stay Together") and John Waite ("Missing You"). Fans seeking a complete overview of Turner's career should look to 1994's THE COLLECTED RECORDINGS: SIXTIES TO NINETIES, but, with that said, ALL THE BEST is a fine place to turn for a one-stop assembly of Turner's later work.