[.ca] Biography: Greatest Hits

From Amazon.co.uk:
Having sold over 13 million albums, Lisa Stansfield can lay claim to being the UK's top female vocalist of the last 15 years. Biography, this 17-track compilation, would certainly back up her argument. Including her breakthrough as featured vocalist on Coldcut's "People Hold On", it also contains her debut proper ("This is the Right Time") and a string of absurdly memorable hits, such as "Change", "All Woman", "Never", "Never Gonna Give You Up" and her first Number One, "All Around the World". Each of these slick and soulful efforts highlights both Stansfield's extraordinary voice and a songwriting ability that's rare amongst soul divas. Aside from Queen's "These Are the Days of Our Lives", Cole Porter's "Down in the Depths" and the aforementioned Barry White hit "Never Gonna Give You Up", she cowrote all of these pieces with Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, her former partners in the soul-funk outfit Blue Zone. That cute kiss-curl and array of flamboyant hats may be long gone, but her talent endures. --Dominic Wills

excellent retrospective:
Lisa Stansfield has, for a decade and a half, managed to produce a string of effortlessly catchy and silky smooth singles and a handful of generally more inconsistent albums. That's why a comprehensive greatest hits collection like this is such a good idea. Biography includes all of her English Top 40 hits with the exception of the What Did I Do To You? EP. It also includes a couple of extras in her track from the Red Hot and Blue album and one from the Five Live EP with Queen and George Michael. Those two are the weakest tracks here, interrupting the seamless flow of smooth dance-pop confections before the one-two finale of All Woman and All Around The World. While there are a couple of other personal faves that I would have liked to have seen included, there is no denying that this set is a great retrospective and shows that Lisa's music sounds as strong today as it ever did.

SHE MAKES YA WANNA DANCE!:
I totally agree with bl7861 from Albany-----(must be us New Yorkers who really love this type of music)! And I still do! I'm a 53yr. old woman, & when I listen to anything by this white soulful diva, all I want to do is get in my convertible & go for a long drive on the I90! If I'm standing, I'm dancing! It's just the way she makes me feel! This is a great CD,& I find that unlike a lot of other yesterday artists, you still want to purchase her stuff--------it's timeless, and makes you want to move!

It was about time.:
I'm glad that Lisa has now a greatest hits album. This English fabulous singer who has sold up to 13 million copies worldwide gives us this great gift adding songs like: "All around the world" a 1989 hit that reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified Gold and its album Multi-Platinum thanks to only one song. Other hit singles from Lisa are: "Never gonna give you up" (cover from Barry White which was an instant hit in Europe, the US and Asia), "The real thing" (a 1997 hit which reached #1 on the Club Dance Songs from Billboard), "Someday I'm coming back" (from the multi-million selling soundtrack "The bodyguard"), "People hold on" (another #1 hit all through Europe), "Let's just call it love" (from her latest studio album "Face up"). Lisa is a singer who goes through pop, rock, ballads and disco music. She says that Barry White is a big influence in her career. "Biography" includes a bonus cd which features remixes and extra tracks such as: "The line" (from her 1997 hit album "Lisa Stansfield"), "8-3-1" and "Never gonna fall".

Excellent for her long-time fans:
I've known her for over 10 years, from her shocking hit like ' All Around the World' to the recent movie - SWING. I'm almost 30 Yrs old single man, but whenever I hear her voice, I can almost feel the THING, the something special that made me her fan for so long times. OK. I still love Hard Rock, Jazz and recently Classical Concerto stuff. But her music is still enjoyable, refreshing and making me feel like to be a college freshman again. These days, there are so many talent-less singers esp. in USA. She...is still having that THING. If you've been a long-time fan of her like me, you're going to love this CD. If you don't know anything about her, it's definitely worth to try, and surprisingly her 10 yrs old song is actually much better than recent stuff for teen-agers. IMPORTED version also has additional mixed tracks. Also, don't forget to check out my favorite Lisa's album ?Affection & Real Love.

A Class Act.:
In 1989, Lisa Stansfield crashed into the British scene with her debut single "All Around the World." With a voice that oozes soul so effortlessly, her single was an instant smash in the UK. Some naysayers complained that "All Around the World" liberally borrowed the mid-tempo groove from Soul II Soul's "Keep On Movin'," but the voice was unmistakably Stanfield's. That single was released the following year in the United States, and Lisa became a new international voice for blue-eyed soul. It seemed, for a moment, that she would have a bright future ahead of her in the US, but while she continued to score a decent amount of hits overseas, each album she released on these shores sold less than the one before it. But "Biography," her well-deserved singles collection, lets us Americans know what we've been missing since her debut album "Affection." In addition to her signature hit "All Around the World," there are other noteworthy cuts like her respectable cover of Barry White's "Never Never Gonna Give You Up," the disco-flavored "This Is the Right Time," the low-key "Change," and my personal favorite, the killer ballad "All Woman." What sets Stansfield apart is that she takes a more classic approach to her material and avoids blatant trends. That makes her one of the most-respected and underrated singers to be exported from across the Atlantic. The 17 tracks on this collection certainly make this "Biography" complete.

• Change
• Someday (I'm Coming Back)
• This Is the Right Time
• Real Thing
• People Hold On - Coldcut, Lisa Stansfield
• In All the Right Places
• So Natural
• Time to Make You Mine
• Live Together
• You Can't Deny It
• Never Gonna Fall
• Let's Just Call It Love
• Never, Never Gonna Give You Up
• These Are the Days of Our Lives \oLive\c - George Michael, Queen, Lisa Stansfield
• Down in the Depths
• All Woman
• All Around the World