The Best of Jennifer Holliday

by

Jennifer Holliday

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I was truly excited when this cd first came out in 1996, I had to have it and purchased it the day it came out. For years all I had from Jennifer is the soundtrack to "Dreamgirls" and the album (cd) "Get Close To My Love" which I found at a record store in the cut-out bin selling for around four dollars. This cd of her work has been in demand from the fans for years, I'm glad Geffen gave in. "The Best Of Jennifer Holliday" samples work from her soundtrack work with "Dreamgirls" and her three solo studio albums with Geffen and a track from her only album with Arista, "I'm On Yor Side," which was the album's title also. After this track the cd is filled with remixes which aren't bad, there was a cd single released from this album, the radio remix of "No Frills Love" with a previously unreleased song made "b" side, "Up Jumped Love," a mid-tempo ditty produced by Mtume. The cd could have been filled out with longer remixes or full-length original remixes in the like of "No Frills Love," the original 12" mix is an amazing display of synths and vocal tricks. Be that as it may, Geffen did release radio remixes to update this collection, they could have simply made this a collection in the way of "20th Century Masters," a much shorter collection featuring album cuts not found here. The bottom line here is Jennifer is not much represented by studio work, to say the performances here are all stellular would be redundant, this is a great representation of her work.

though i have always been aware of jennifer holliday, with regard to her historical signifigance as an artist, _the best of jennifer holliday_ is the first of her albums to be added to my collection. so, being unfamiliar with her music, i cannot speak to whether or not this album truthfully represents the "best" of her work, but i am, nonetheless, impressed. the two best tracks, as one might expect, come from the _dreamgirls_ soundtrack. especially on "and i am telling you i'm not going", something primordial is tapped as holliday's voice progresses, at some points, from a steady rumbling to a full-blown growl. at various times, her voice is remeniscent of the late, great phyllis hyman but holliday's style is completely her own. club versions of three of her tunes, courtesy of love to infinity, attempt to attract a new audience with mixed results, while "someday" offers listeners a fourth previously-unreleased track. strangely, some of holliday's most compelling work, of late, has occurred on the small screen as a featured character on the courtroom dramedy _ally mcbeal_. a release of the songs from that show would make a nice follow-up to _the best..._.