Lisa Stansfield’s greatest hits

The deluge of song anthologies by major pop artists reached fever-pitch last year. Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Chicago, Elton John, the Cranberries and others, all had collections of recordings from years past in the hit charts. The record buyers went wild for them. Those albums not only exemplify the best pop music from the last three decades has to offer, they also come with the much welcome, if albeit, sometimes bittersweet baggage of memories.

Memories too are what Lisa Stansfield offers up in Biography. You can look at this greatest hits compilation from the British R&B star two ways. One is that it brings up the rear among the anthology releases that came out in 2002. The other one is that it is the first for this year and it opens the market in 2003 for more of the same. Whether first or last though, here is proof that Stansfield has indeed sold a lot of records and has every right to use the adjective "greatest" to describe her hits.

Although pretty and talented, Lisa Stansfield is the kind of artist who is never sensational or tabloid fodder. If placed alongside other female stars of the ’80s and ’90s, like Madonna, Cher, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, Lisa is the one who will fade into the woodwork. This is not because she is any less important or is the lesser artist. She is in fact a better singer than some of those pop divas and is also an acknowledged fashion plate.

It is just because the times when she came out for the headlines and became controversial were for causes she truly believed in. Lisa was one of the few artists who spoke out against the Gulf War and for the cause of the Kurdish refugees. In all likelihood, she is probably batting for peace right now. Truth to tell, it is only after listening to Biography that you realize how familiar her songs are and how great an effect she had on R&B music during the past two decades.

Stansfield charted with R&B recordings at a time when it was not usual for white girls and British at that to do so. This is the Right Time, her debut single gave her excellent introduction. It was a stylish, danceable pop tune made all the more appealing by the sight of this beautiful girl with full-bodied vocals with Barry White’s soulful sensibility down pat. This was followed by All Around the World, which made number one in the UK and the US of A.

These songs come from her first album Affection. Her second titled Real Love brought the hits Change, All Woman, Time to Make You Mine and Set Your Loving Free. By the time her third album So Natural came out, Stansfield had become one of the most in-demand vocalists of the period. She recorded Down in the Depths for the Cole Porter collection that raised funds for AIDS charities. She sang These are the Days of Our Lives, with Queen and George Michael in a memorial for Freddie Mercury. She did a song in the soundtrack of the movie The Bodyguard, Someday, I’m Coming Back and performed In All the Right Places, the lovely theme from another box-office hit, Indecent Proposal.

Biography brings all these songs and more together for the first time in one album. It is an enjoyable collection that gets you moving, feeling and of course, remembering. The other cuts are The Real Thing, People Hold On, Live Together, Little Bit of Heaven, Let’s Just Call It Love and her version of the Barry White classic Never, Never Gonna Give You Up which she performs as though it was written especially for her.

Shine for the Shrine

You can do a good deed and get your car washed all shiny like new if you visit the Saint Vincent’s Seminary in Tandang Sora, Quezon City on Sunday, March 23. Graduates of the seminary who have banded together under the Alumni of the Congregation of the Mission will be having a carwash fundraiser. Dubbed Shine for the Shrine, the proceeds earned will help build the first shrine in the Philippines of St. Vincent de Paul. The groundbreaking will take place at the same venue on Tuesday, March 25.

So spare yourselves and help the task of washing the car this weekend. All you have to do is give a donation to the shrine and those seminarians will do the job for you.