I've seen him do a bit of press/radio, but his people do seem to have taken their eye off the ball a bit, compared to earlier in the year. He seemed to be promoting himself quite a bit in February to tie in with the 20th anniversary of his Pop Idol win, but not so much focus on this best of. No video for the single, and I don't think Radio 2 even playlisted it? I think we deserved a more interesting/comprehensive best of tracklisting, especially since it's his third one. And annoyed with the signed insert, which is too big to fit inside nicely. It's all just a bit half arsed. Hopefully they'll put more effort into the studio album. Do we know if that's still likely to come this year?
Radio 2 is on all day at work and they’ve played Why Does It Hurt a fair amount over the last few weeks. Pretty sure he was interviewed earlier too.
They should have used this as the title of the video. It was nice listening to the collection (I don't think I've listened to his other Greatest Hits), but some of the omissions are odd, especially Switch It On (mainly because it's one of my favourite Will Young songs). And unless I'm wrong it's the only Will Young lead single not present on the collection? I like the new songs. I think they're growers because neither of them have stuck with me at all. But I definitely think I'll end up making my own playlist rather than coming back to this.
The omission of Switch It On is baffling. I'm sure everyone would rather have had that instead of The Long and Winding Road in 2022.
Maybe Will doesn’t like Switch It On thus it hasn’t been included? (If that’s the case- it’s further proof that artists are never the best judge of excellence when it comes to their own work. ABBA hate Summer Night despite it popping the fuck off and Kylie hates What Kind Of Fool!).
Oh it'll be some label 'oh that was a bit musically too off brand, let's put a dull cover that was a number one on instead' interference.
I think The Essential remains his best compilation album tracklist, it's also still the only place to get Don't Let Me Down. Maybe in 2027 we'll finally get a B-side compilation...
If I recall correctly, it was actually Will who pushed for it to be the first single, because he didn't want to come back with another ballad?
As Switch It On was on both The Hits and Essential, it seems unlikely that he doesn’t like it. He had more say on The Hits than Essential. The latter included Anything Is Possible, Don’t Let Me Down and The Long and Winding Road - none of which appeared on The Hits - even though by then there was another album to collect the singles from. It couldn’t be anything to do with Top Gun could it, with there being a new film out? Did the producers of that not like Will’s parody of it in the video, and dissuaded the record company from including it in case it encouraged people to check out the visuals?
Seems unlikely. If anything it'd help the film rather than the opposite. I just think it differs from so much of his other hits they're focusing on the radio 2 safe tracks. I did see an interview with Will where he said his favourite 3 were Who am I (my favourite), Jealousy and Daniel so he has decent taste in his own music.
Just to confirm, the version of Who Am I on the comp is not the superior radio mix? Well at least we've got the single version of Friday's Child on streaming in the US now.
I mean I'd love to say I'm surprised but I'm not at all. It's at least an updated version for streaming and is good before the tour. I'm already ready to move onto the real next album though.
