Hits (2004), by Mike + The Mechanics

This album works best as a companion to Mike + The Mechanics’ first two releases, Mike + The Mechanics (1985) and The Living Years (1988), which have much better songs overall than this collection, aside from the obvious hits.

Those would be “All I Need Is a Miracle ‘96” (a remake, but still good, although the 1985 original is preferred), “The Living Years,” “Nobody’s Perfect,” “Silent Running,” “Nobody Knows,” and “Taken In.”

While The Mechanics had far fewer later hits than these in the US and the UK, the rest of the songs, as the liner notes themselves say, have been major hits in one part of the world or another.

Nevertheless, Hits features a nice sampling of the group’s overall work, most notably “Another Cup of Coffee” and “Beggar on a Beach of Gold,” and is worth having if you don’t own or intend to get all of their albums.

If the latter is true, another good collection with more different tracks is their 2014 retrospective.

This is definitely a pleasant and enjoyable listen from beginning to end, but if you really want the best of Genesis guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford’s other band, you should get The Mechanics’ first two albums as well.

--Raj Manoharan