The Best of Stray Cats [2005 Capitol] (CD - 1998)

Photographer: Harry Goodwin.

Capitol Records/EMI's scant The Best of Stray Cats collection is about as budget as you can get. No liner notes, no remastering, and absolutely no surprises await the listener. Almost all of the tracks are culled from their 1982 breakthrough record, Built for Speed, and its excellent successor, Rant n' Rave with the Stray Cats. Radio staples like "Rock This Town," "Stray Cat Strut," and "(She's) Sexy + 17" -- strangely there's no "Rumble in Brighton" -- sound as good here as they would on the far superior 20-track Back to the Alley: Best of the Stray Cats, or even the similarly sparse Best of the Stray Cats: Rock This Town. ~ James Christopher Monger

The Best of Stray Cats is a budget-line disc featuring ten cuts recorded for EMI America by the excellent retro-rockabilly band of the '80s. Included are the hit singles "Stray Cat Strut," "Rock This Town," "(She's) Sexy + 17," along with an excellent cover version of Johnny Burnette and the Rock & Roll Trio's "Baby Blue Eyes." While a few essential album cuts are missing -- "Runaway Boys," "Fishnet Stockings," "Rev It Up and Go" -- The Best of Stray Cats is a decent purchase for the budget-minded casual fan. ~ Al Campbell

EMI-Capitol Special Markets' The Best of the Stray Cats is part of the label's Ten Best Series, one of the best budget-line series yet assembled. Often, budget-priced series will contain a couple of hits and an abundance of filler, some of which is good, some of which is not so good. Ten Best Series, however, does an excellent job of rounding up the majority of the hits an artist recorded for a particular label. For instance, The Best of the Stray Cats contains all six of the group's charting American hits -- "Rock This Town," "Stray Cat Strut, " "(She's) Sexy + 17, " "I Won't Stand In Your Way" and "Look at That Cadillac" -- plus four very good album cuts. There might not be any liner notes and the songs may be assembled haphazardly, but for budget-minded casual fans, this delivers everything they'll need. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Capitol Records/EMI's scant The Best of Stray Cats collection is about as budget as you can get. No liner notes, no remastering, and absolutely no surprises await the listener. Almost all of the tracks are culled from their 1982 breakthrough record, Built for Speed, and its excellent successor, Rant n' Rave with the Stray Cats. Radio staples like "Rock This Town," "Stray Cat Strut," and "(She's) Sexy + 17" -- strangely there's no "Rumble in Brighton" -- sound as good here as they would on the far superior 20-track Back to the Alley: Best of the Stray Cats, or even the similarly sparse Best of the Stray Cats: Rock This Town. ~ James Christopher Monger minimize