Astrud Gilberto - Gold (2008)

Astrud Gilberto, the winsome naïf whose girlish yet sultry vocals captivated the world on the hit "The Girl from Ipanema," earned her own contract with Verve from its success and recorded throughout the last half of the '60s. Although her material wavered in quality, she was usually paired with excellent arrangers such as Gil Evans, Claus Ogerman, and Antonio Carlos Jobim himself. The Gold compilation is a two-disc set that includes 36 tracks, a good portion of everything she recorded between 1962 and 1969 (plus a pair of tracks from a 1987 comeback album). The first disc is by far the strongest of the two, including her pair of vocals for the Getz/Gilberto album as well as her early masterpieces with Jobim and Gil Evans (plus her bubbly pop album co-billed with organist Walter Wanderley). The second disc includes her later work as well as some rarities: four songs that were released on singles only and the soundtrack title "Who Needs Forever?" (from the Sidney Lumet spy film The Deadly Affair). Gilberto benefits quite a bit from this compilation, one of the longest she's received. Although some purists will forever criticize her amateurish sound, her persistence in the cultural imagination is proof enough of her charm.