Definitive Collection

European only Gold Disc packaged in an exclusive slipcase. The Definitive Collection is just that, a 20-track retrospective of the New Jersey songstress' entire career. Extensive liner notes trace her career from roots in gospel to session work as a background singer, on through her association with Burt Bacharach and many later collaborations with some of the biggest names in music. The first nine tracks are all classic '60s tunes written by Bacharach and Hal David. The songwriting team presented Warwick with such chestnuts as 'Walk On By', 'Alfie', and 'I Say A Little Prayer', and she croons them perfectly. 'Then Came You', Warwick's duet with The Spinners, shows how she changed soulfully with the times. In an age when every female R&B artist is being marketed as a Diva, the 25 years of music on this album prove that Warwick has indisputably earned her title. Arista. 2005.

This 20-track career overview's problems are summed up by the differences between two songs. "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," released in 1969, came near the end of Warwick's classic collaborative period with Burt Bacharach and Hal David; contrast its witty approach to heartbreak ("What do you get when you kiss a guy? / You get enough germs to catch pneumonia / And after you do, he'll never phone ya") with "I'll Never Love This Way Again," the single that launched her chart comeback a decade later. That track encapsulates everything wrong with late-'70s easy listening, right down to the turgid Barry Manilow production. Saddest, though, is Warwick's capitulation to empty displays of technique over the perfectly sung vulnerability she specialized in with Bacharach and David. Skip this set in favor of The Dionne Warwick Collection, 24 masterpieces from the earlier period that will rarely be far from your CD player. As for Warwick's terrific 1974 meeting with the Spinners on "Then Came You," you'd do better to check out a greatest-hits set by those smooth-soul champs. --Rickey Wright