Reason to Believe: The Complete Mercury Studio Recordings

You could almost open a record shop selling only Rod Stewart compilations, what with The Millennium Collection, Changing Faces, Sing It Again Rod, The Best of Rod Stewart and a few more all still available. This latest gathers all his early solo recordings for Mercury, though if you have 1995's Handbags & Gladrags collection, you'll own about half the material already. Anyway, this is the music that first made listeners hail Stewart as one of the all-time great rock'n'soul vocalists, before his ghastly descent into novelty disco records, skin-crawling balladry and crass demolitions of Cole Porter and George Gershwin. Spinning back 35 years to his debut, The Rod Stewart Album, it's startling to be reminded of the unvarnished force young Rodders brought to a recording. He turned in terrific versions of the Stones' Street Fighting Man and Ewan MacColl's Dirty Old Town, alongside rude and rowdy rockers like Cindy's Lament. Better still were Gasoline Alley, where he charged rambunctiously through the likes of It's All Over Now and Elton John's Country Comfort, and Every Picture Tells a Story, Stewart's autobiography told through an impeccable mix of cover versions and brilliant, original songwriting. He was never quite this good again, though Never a Dull Moment contains a decent percentage of tunes worth some iPod space. But by the time he made Smiler, the magic was wearing off.