With hits like Walking on Broken Glass and Why on the permanent set list of easy-listening radio stations, it seems like the icy-eyed, close-cropped Scot Annie Lennox has been part of our musical landscape forever - which makes it even more surprising that this is her first collection of greatest solo hits. Of course, the Eurythmics years with Dave Stewart have been well-documented, with some of the opinion that her career has never matched the musical highs of Sweet Dreams and There Must Be An Angel. Yet a peek into her 17-year solo back catalogue is proof that this is far from true. Walking on Broken Glass, Little Bird and Why, from her multi award-winning 1992 debut solo album, Diva, combine the best of Lennox - wry, clever lyrics and that inimitable, haunting voice. And No More I love Yous, from 1995's Medusa, is an epic ode to heartbreak, which pulls off despairing and uplifting at the same time. A few blips lurk in some of her more recent work - Sing and Cold are both disappointingly damp squibs - but Pavement Cracks and Dark Road see her back at her most melodically versatile, effortlessly combining nostalgia with plenty of vim. A couple of covers, including Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale and the previously unreleased A Shining Light by Ash, as well as a new number written by Keane's Tom Chaplin, are perfectly respectable, but with such a towering back catalogue, you can't help thinking that there must have been better contenders.
