The Best of 1990 - 2000 (2002)


 
1. Even Better Than the Real Thing 2. Mysterious Ways 3. Beautiful Day 4. Electrical Storm 5. One 6. Miss Sarajevo 7. Stay (Far Away, So Close) 8. Stuck in a Moment That You Can't Get Out Of 9. Gone 10.Until the End of the World 11.The Hands That Built America 12.Discotheque 13.Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me 14.Staring at the Sun 15.Numb 16.The First Time




 

In many ways, this greatest hits package is superior to the band's first one, yet it sadly falls short in some small, yet very significant ways as well.

First, although the time period here isn't arguably as good as the band's first decade (although it really was still quite brilliant), this record seems to have a bit more consistency. In other words, the band didn't quite shift its styles so much. Of course, this was the 'techno' phase of the band's career which, to be fair, wasn't really adored by a lot of the faithful. Basically, this means this album flows a lot better. It helps when there are several non album tracks featured here (four, to be exact), yet are all basically great songs that aren't used as cheap filler.

Ironically, though, when the band features a couple of tracks from the radically different 2000 release All That You Can't Leave Behind, you can start to see some seams showing. First, they only feature two songs from that record, whereas they should have featured many more. Then, they also leave arguably the best song from the 1990's, The Fly off the record. I can't imagine how that track could have been left off this record. It had to have been a mistake. It had to have been.

So this leads me to conclude that if they hadn't felt the need to group this record by 'decade', and simply cut off the tracks before they got to 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind, and used the slots for those two songs for The Fly and another selection somewhere, it would have made this a much better overall experience.

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