Band : Whitesnake
Album title : 30th Anniversary Collection
Label : EMI
Distributor : Columbia
Release date : 09/06/2008
Release : 3-disc CD

Hum...over the past couple of years Whitesnake has again been gaining somewhat in popularity, and there we see David Coverdale's old label EMI taking the opportunity to make an extra buck by picking up on the fact that Whitesnake has been around for 30 years now!

Pure commercial money-sucking greed, if you ask me, because there's nothing on the 3 discs the true Whitesnake fan doesn't already have in his collection, as everything is simply taken off the regular albums, except perhaps for "Gambler" (b-side of the 1983 single Guilty For Love on the first disc), and US mix of "Now You're Gone" (off a 1990 12-inch single on disc two), and personally I'd never heard the Coverdale Page collaboration (released 1993) stuff (two of which are on disc two, one on disc three). At first I was somewhat dumbfounded with the choice of track-list, until I researched and found out the label has divided the material over àll three discs as much as possible. Not suprisingly, a líttle more attention goes to hit albums Trouble (1978), Live In The Heart Of The City (1980), Ready And Willing (the absolute winner with six tracks, 1980), Come An' Get It (1981) and 1987 (also 6 tracks, 1987), each getting 5 songs (or more) spread over the 3 discs! Also, the first two discs contain 4 live songs each. Not actually part of the EMI catalogue, the label has nevertheless succeeded in getting two more recent songs on the album with "If You Want Me" (studio bonus off the 2006 live Live In The Shadow Of The Blues double album) and "Best Years" (off the band's 2008 album Good To Be Bad). In all, what you get is no less than 52 songs spread over 3 CDs, enough to give any music lover an oversight in the musical career of Whitesnake!

What makes the whole thing worth having to me personally (hey, of course I understand that for younger people discovering Whitesnake only now, this collection is quite a nice way to getting to know the band a little better musically, but that's not what interests mé in this release...) is the 48-page booklet...and the fact that they got David himself to compile the track-list! Starting with the extensive story writen by David himself (a total of 17 pages), there's also a 14-page interview with him, done by Mick Wall. Luckily, the booklet also contains a list of where the tracks were taken from (something which I found out much later after having done the research myself!). It also lists the albums (with track-lists) and a selected singles gallery section! Nice stuff!

Well, this is a compilation isn't it, and without any added (musical) value, I don't rate this kind of things!

Tony.