Strictly the Best Volume 26 (VP, 2000)

Just when I thought Strictly the Best couldn't fall any further below Volume 22, they push that envelope of crappiness to the limit on Volume 26, another mish-mosh of trite pop remakes and half-hearted syrupy love songs.  Anytime you have an album containing remakes of songs by Britney Spears (Sanchez's "Sometimes"), Backstreet Boys (Christopher's "All I Have To Give"), Celine Dion (Terry Linen's "That's the Way It Is"), and, so help me God, Air Supply (Ghost's "Nothing At All"), you know you're in for some deep hurting.  The Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys remakes actually aren't that bad (better than the originals, at least), but the others are fairly intolerable (I mean, Air Supply, c'mon!), though still not as intolerable as Girlfriends' (who?) useless take on Macy Gray's "I Try" and the were-they-high-when-they-wrote-this-mess "Reunion" by Wayne Wonder and Buju Banton.  Attempting to rescue the album are Freddie McGregor -- with his heartfelt "I See It in You" -- Half Pint -- who comes back from oblivion with the solid "Just Be Good" -- and Mr. Biggs -- who adeptly covers Tyrese's "Lately" -- but it's all way too little, way too late.  Having recently reviewed Volumes 26 and 27 of Jet Star's Reggae Hits series, Strictly the Best Volume 26 stands out as all the more bafflingly bad.  The two best tracks on this album -- Junior Kelly's lighthearted romp "Love So Nice" and the Marcia Griffiths/Da'ville (fomerly of ARP) cover of Linda Ronstadt/Aaron Neville's "All My Love" (AKA "All My Life") -- are on Reggae Hits Volume 26 and 27, respectively, both infinitely superior collections.  Furthermore, "Love So Nice" and Glen Washington's "Strangers in the Night" -- the other true standout here -- both just sound so old, as Strictly the Best Volume 26 coming out in November of 2000, some 7 or 8 months after these singles were released.  If Strictly the Best went back to releasing volumes periodically throughout the year (as Reggae Hits does), then some of this material wouldn't seem quite so stale.  All total, half of these 16 tracks are remakes, furthering the opinion that quality original lovers rock songs are an endangered species.