I bought the new Huey Lewis and the News Greatest Hits CD the other day. I have some reservations about this release. For one, the market already pretty saturated with compilations of their hits, and putting this one out there might just dilute the market for a proper box set that could better show off the depth of their talent that isn't necessarily reflected in their more commercial hits (e.g., with more esoteric cuts and live performances, or even the songs everyone knows but set into the context of the overall development of their career). (Of course, I suppose it could also be true that the release could help stoke interest in such a release, perhaps.)
More significantly, however, it's extremely odd that a "Huey Lewis and the News" greatest hits CD includes a song not by Huey Lewis and the News. Clearly some record executive somewhere thought he could make some extra money if he included the recent hit "Cruisin'" from the movie Duets and performed by Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow. But that's the problem: it's performed by Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow, with nary another Newsman anywhere on the track. I think it's quite wrong to pass off a non-News song as a News song. It's misleading, first of all, and it also disrespects the band. Despite what many non-fans mistakenly think, "Huey Lewis and the News" is not Huey Lewis plus a random group of musicians. Rather, the band has been a stable group of friends and colleagues, each of whom has made an integral contribution to the unique musical chemistry behind their distinctive sound. So while "Cruisin'" is a pleasant song to listen to, and the vocal performance is perfectly fine, it clearly pales to any of the actual News songs on the disc. It just does not have anywhere near the quality or depth that anything the ensemble of the News ever has produced, and it's wrong to taint the band's musical credibility through the association.
On the other hand, the CD does include 20 other songs that are actually News songs, and of course they are quite good. People unfamiliar with their work might be surprised to learn that jazz great Stan Getz performed on one of their records, and the song he appeared on, "Small World" is included on the Greatest Hits album. While I still would recommend listening to their actual albums for a better demonstration of their work (especially the less popular but no less excellent Small World and Plan B albums) for people without their full discography at the ready the Greatest Hits CD provides a handy way to stroll down memory lane remembering some of their biggest hits over the years.
There is also a version of the release that includes 10 of their videos on a companion DVD. And that's fun. Again, as a fan I wish it had included some other videos that have yet to appear on a DVD, but it does cover many of their better-known ones and shows off their distinctive slightly-Pythonesque video style. For instance, there's the video from "If This is It," where the band finds themselves buried up to their necks in sand. There's the "Stuck with You" video, where Huey gets accosted at a cocktail party by people pressuring him to follow-up Sports, sneaks out by offering to take a beautiful woman (played by the future wife of Pierce "James Bond" Brosnan) out for a ride in his yacht, and ends up with them washing up on the shores of an allegedly deserted island after falling off a rowboat named "Myott."
And then there is the epic video from "Doing it All for My Baby." It begins with Huey driving the band on a dark and stormy night. Things begin to take a tragic turn when they crash into something in the road. They all get out of the van to assess the repairs, which somehow involves jacking the whole thing up, removing a wheel, and then getting under the elevated van with a wrench. The band makes Huey do it. Unfortunately a careless bandmember causes the jack to slip, and poor Huey gets squashed under the van. At first the band panics and tries to pull him out but they succeed only in removing a shoe (thus revealing a polka-dot sock). After trying and failing to replace said shoe, they give up and walk off to find something to eat.
Meanwhile some very persistent gravediggers (i.e., when their corpse suddenly sits up they hit him over the head with their shovel so they can keep burying him), later driving a truck from "Acme Meat Co.," come upon Huey's body and take their turn at trying to remove it. While they struggle with this, the band approaches a spooky castle. A very scary-looking butler welcomes them in, then brandishes a meat cleaver. The band is not seen again, except for later in the video when their dismembered heads in specimen jars sing the chorus.
It turns out that they had arrived at Dr. Frankenstein's castle, where the not-so-good doctor intends to create a monster. Fortunately for him the gravediggers have arrived with Huey's body so he has something to work with. His work is a success, and then we are shown why he went to the effort: to make a groom for his monster bride. As the two monsters lumber toward each other in monster love, Dr. Frankenstein's assistant happens to notice the large lever with the sign below it reading, "Do not touch no matter what." Naturally, he pulls the lever, and in a flurry of sparks Huey reverts from his monster form to his normal self, the result of which disgusts his would-be bride.
The Tower of Power horn section also appears in this video - hung from a wall in chains. All other characters, creatures, and monsters (except for the bride) are played by Newsmen.
I've always liked that they are a very silly band.