Roy Orbison

From Chuck Berry on Mercury to the reunited Everlys, rerecorded best-ofs like this one rarely deliver magic or chops. The youthful buoyancy that kept the melodrama from getting soggy is in short supply, and without much trade-off in the standard interpretive nuance. A quarter-century later, his voice still socks and soars, and if on some songs--"Pretty Woman" of course, "Blue Bayou," "Candy Man"--it's clear that only the original artyfact will do, nobody who wasn't there would swear to the general inferiority of this marginally more tasteful recreation. After all, just exactly how great were his hits? Crowning him rock's first neurotic is as overwrought as damning Donald Duck for a protofascist--pop-rock (cum countrypolitan) self-pity has its own conventions just like slapstick did, and he is their slave. So as a heretic who isn't positive Phil Spector was good for rock and roll, and also as a heretic who was there, I'll stick with the artyfacts after all. They're certainly no worse. And versions you don't need. (Grade: B)