Though Tommy Seebach died four years ago at the age of 53, a new greatest hits collection provides fans and new listeners with an overview of his career. The first cd in the collection is the most relevant for Eurovision Song Contest fans. Aside from his entries from 1979 and 1981 the disk includes national final songs like Hip hurra, det� min fødselsdag, Pyjamas for to, Det� det jeg altid har sagt and Det� gratis. His 1993 Eurovision Song Contest entry is not included in this collection.

The double album serves in many ways as a musically biography of Seebach as it shows many aspect of his talents including some of his instrumental hits. Three of his songs with the band Sir Henry are included, the oldest from 1968. The rest of the 35 songs are spread over the 1970’s and 1980’s ending with Du skælder mig hele tiden ud, a duet with Annette Heick from 1989. We would have preferred to find the tracks arranged in chronological order, instead the track layout seems somewhat random leaving us to wonder what the producer planned.

CD1 kicks of with the big instrumental hit Apache followed by the Eurovision Song Contest entries Disco tango and Krøller eller ej, which really get the listening party going. The four above-mentioned national final songs are all found on CD1 along with big hits like Tommygum rock ‘n’ roll show, Du’ det dejligste, Du skælder mig hele tiden ud, Lucky guy and Copenhagen. The first CD also includes cover versions of famous international songs such as Sealed with a kiss and I see a moon.

CD2 starts out with the Sir Henry song Annie got a date. The idea of including some of his songs from this period of his career is good, but maybe songs like Patricia the stripper and Hejdi hi hoe chould have been left out – we wanted to skip past those tracks. Songs like Wouldn’t it be so nice (which Kirsten & Søren/ Hot Eyes fans will recognize as Så kan du godt tro om igen) and Here we go again brings us back on track though – not to mention Play me a love song which seems musically inspired by Eddie Cochran’s Three steps to heaven. A song like Du har fortryllet mig plays like a mix between Bonnie Tyler and a typical 80’s Danish final song – a mix which would have been interesting to actually have tried in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix.

Eurovision Song Contest fans will find that this is a nice CD for their collection as it includes all the national final songs as well as the English versions Disco tango and Straight or curly hair.The album serves as a great overview of his career as it includes instrumental songs, romantic ballads and typical up tempo 80’s songs – in a nice mix of Danish and English. With 35 songs for the price of one CD it is not a hardship to find a couple of lesser songs in the package.

Total result: 4 out of 5 stars. Unfortunately there are two or three songs your esctoday.com editor would have preferred not to find there, and one of them should have been replaced with Under stjernerne på himlen.The lack of this 1993 Eurovision entry and the non-chronological track order really take one star away from an otherwise great album.

5 songs to recommend: Du’ det dejligste, Copenhagen, Wouldn’t it be so nice, Det’ det jeg altid har sagt and I’m in love.

Click here to buy this album from cdon.com