AMG Review of Definitive Collection

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

2006's The Definitive Collection replaces 1996's Greatest Hits as the best available single-disc Buddy Holly collection on the market, and it replaces 1985's From the Original Master Tapes as the best single-disc Buddy Holly CD yet released. At 26 tracks, it's eight songs longer than the 1996 set and six songs longer than the 1985 set, so it's more comprehensive than either of the previous discs, adding such strong relative obscurities as "Midnight Shift" to the standard hits that form the bulk of this collection. Listeners who want a more thorough retrospective should turn to 2005's double-disc Gold, which is nearly twice as long, but The Definitive Collection has all of Holly's major songs -- "That'll Be the Day," "Words of Love," "Not Fade Away," "Everyday," "Oh Boy!," "Peggy Sue," "Maybe Baby," "Rave On," "Well...All Right," and "Think It Over," among others -- in one thoroughly entertaining package, which makes it a terrific overview and introduction of one of the greatest rockers in history.