“Best Of” or “Greatest Hits” collections really don’t need to be reviewed since all that material most of the time exists on studio records. An “Anthology” or in this case “Definitive Collection” is supposedly more comprehensive and better for scrutinizing. In this case this is not a true “definitive” collection. It’s a good one and for the States the most comprehensive yet to reach our shores so call it semi definitive.

Here are my reasons….. Pro number one, its good because you get 5 songs from the pre 1984 era with 1981’s ‘Don’t Break My Heart Again’ , ‘Aint No Love’ from 1978, ‘Walking in the Shadow of the Blues’ and ‘We Wish You Well’ off “Lovehunter” and “Ready an Willing” title track. Number two, is the three songs off “Slide it In”, the title track, ‘Slow an Easy’, and ‘Love Aint No Stranger’ were taken from the UK version of “Slide it In” which are not the same recordings as what was released in the States on Geffen records. John Sykes played guitar on the U.S. version while the U.K. has a different lineup consisting of players found on earlier Whitesnake albums like Micky Moody and Jon Lord from Deep Purple.

The cons….First off why is there a song from the Coverdale/Page project which is clearly not Whitesnake, especially when nothing was taken from 1978’s “Trouble” album? Also, along with the hit 1987 version of ‘Here I go Again’, how about include the original found on the “Saints and Sinners” album which is also unfortunately not represented by a track.

The rest of the songs are all the hits from both the 1987 self titled and the slick “Slip of the Tongue”.