Customer Reviews

Ultimate Collection

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Mike Pickering's UK dance/soul act M People fronted by ex-Hot House vocalist Heather Small were an integral part of Britain's soundtrack in the 1990s. Clocking up an amazing 18 top 40 hits, and 3 major albums that spent the better part of the decade in the charts its hard not to see why. Despite all the hits the act amazingly never had a UK #1 single!

This release "Ultimate Collection" is an update from 2000's "The best of M People" which attempts to cover the M People's single output from 1993-2000 as well as Heather Small's solo work. This release perplexed me. Fans who bought the original "Best of M People" were excited to get 3 new songs but complained that the release omitted smaller hits "excited" and "love rendezvous"- the latter a hard to find single and very much different from the version that appeared on "Bizarre fruit". With the "ultimate collection" the label listened to fans and included the two tracks but then cut "dreaming" and the top 10 single "itchycoo park" which doesnt make sense.

Regardless of the track listing casual fans and listeners will find this to be an amazing album (especially those who passed on Heather's solo album "proud") as all the major hits are here including their worldwide hit "moving on up". For those looking for an upbeat positive dance/ soul album "ultimate collection" by the M People is definetly worth the import price.

The great Jazz saxophone genius who influenced so many tenor sax players said, "play yourself!" Which leads me to Heather Small. I first discovered her as she knocked my socks off singing the old Tom Jones 60's hit-I Who Have Nothing. It's part of a British tribute to American songwriting legends Lieber and Stoller. While all the current divas sing by not ever ending a note but fly unemcumbered into the stratasphere and never a brethe. Well Small sings in the range of the middle and often lower register. She stops for words! She sounds very much like the great Nina Simone and has a way of scooping n otes very reminiscent of Cher. And Cher is a much better singer than she is given credit for. Small and M People are refreshingly original, and side man Chris "Snake" Davis is an added thrill.