I am not a big fan of greatest hits albums. Yes, once upon a time -before the internet days- they were valuable when someone didn’t want to have the entire discography of a band and just needed the well-known hits. But in this time and age when sales of albums have hit rock bottom, a “best-of” compilation can be seen as something useless. Some people would suggest that even live albums have become quite irrelevant these days but that’s a discussion for another day. So, one can easily gather that when I heard the news about yet another “greatest hits” by my beloved Whitesnake, my first thought was to ignore it despite the fact that I collect almost everything by the British giants! But…and that’s a big “but”, I was pleasantly and unexpectedly surprised by this specific one.
Coverdale had succeeded in bringing forth something really special this time around. The first signs were traced a couple of years back with the trilogy of the Love, Rock & Blues Albums. What Coverdale did was really clever. He recruited keyboardist Derek Sherinian and his longtime friend Adrian Vandenberg on guitar and revisited/retouch/added parts to all those timeless songs without taking anything away from the original version. As a matter of fact, this is not yet another remastered/remixed bunch of songs but a totally fresh approach to the hits aimed towards to both old and new fans. Please, bear in mind that I totally disagree with any notion of re-recording songs. I am a firm believer of the idea that an album is like a time-capsule that depicts a band at a certain point in time. But this is something different altogether. King David has managed to combine the best of both worlds; the past and the present coming together as one and the result is fabulous. And not only this…
At the same time he remastered all the classic video-clips by perfecting the image and the clarity of the picture and at the same time he used different angles and scenes that were cut in the editing floor. It’s like watching them for the very first time as you discover various scenes while you are treated with various additional guitars and keyboards (God damn, there’s even a different solo on “Slide It In” and a variation of the rhythm part of “Give Me All Your Love” by Sykes himself!).
All in all, “Greatest Hits 2022” is the exception to the unwritten rule. This is a well-crafted effort in all departments and I truly believe that every self-respected Whitesnake fan (and not only) should invest on this excellent piece of art. Long Live David Coverdale and Whitesnake!
Sakis Nikas
