Sandra - The Platinum Collection (2009)

The German disco queen of the eighties, a regular on Hungarian tape-recorder wish lists, Sandra, after separating from her husband and collaborator Michael Cretu – the spiritual father of the Enigma music project and the author of many Sandra hits – undertook a more serious compilation than ever before. The triple-disc collection made more than maximum use of the playing time and also offers a hundred minutes of rarities!

This year, the German singer Sandra, whose name was known to half the world in 1985 thanks to the hit Maria Magdalena, is celebrating her quarter-century solo career. The real series of successes lasted until 1992, but the disco queen continued to produce new songs and remixed versions of her former hits after her maternity leave. His latest album was released this year, and nothing better proves the correctness of this summary: tracks from the 2009 album Back To Life were also included on the three-disc The Platinum Collection.
It seems that the compilers of the release followed a simple but great rule: pack everything that a true fan would be happy with! In addition to the CDs covering the two eras, we also get long versions of the greatest hits. True, they shoveled together so much of this that it didn't even fit on the third CD. Let's see what it can do!
The first, with a playing time of about seventy-seven minutes, focuses on the period between 1985 and 1992. About half of the twenty songs, rich in single hits, made it into the German Top 10 that year. The fertile period – like the CD – started with the chart-topping Maria Magdalena, and the singer released seven (!) successful singles in two years. If the first bars and perhaps the song titles mean nothing to those who were young at the time, the choruses of songs like In The Heat Of The Night, Little Girl, Innocent Love, Secret Land, Hiroshima or Don’t Be Aggressive will trigger your memory(s). You can smile and say that youth is foolishness, but these songs were a defining part of the disco history of the eighties in Hungary at the time (also).

The 75-minute second CD brings together the most important items from the period 1992–2009. While Don’t Be Aggressive and I Need Love are more influenced by the musical influences of her ex-husband’s project, Enigma, Steady Me, released at the same time, once again puts Sandra in the spotlight. This album includes the forgettable Maria Magdalena ’93 and the memorable Secret Land ’99, as well as the pleasant Such A Shame and I Close My Eyes. But there are also a number of mistakes here, the cause of which is almost always to be found in the cooled working relationship (meaning: without Michael Cretu) – The Way I Am, What Is It About Me, In A Heartbeat, What If, Tête à Tête. Only All Your Zombies, recorded with a children’s choir, and the duets are refreshing exceptions. In 2006, the Ibiza-based singer managed to record a joint recording with DJ Bobo, and this year with Thomas Anders, known from Modern Talking.

The third disc is entitled The Best Of 12” Versions and the seventy-three minute playing time is filled with a series of rarities: extended versions of eleven chart-topping songs. In addition to the seven-minute version of Maria Magdalena, we also find the nearly seven and a half minute version of In The Heat Of The Night and the five-minute solution of Little Girl. The same number of hits from Sandra's 1986 album Mirrors (Innocent Love, Hi! Hi! Hi!, Midnight Man) are included, and her first compilation, Ten On One, is represented by two specials: the song Stop For A Minute was not only a hit on a music TV show, but also in an episode of the crime drama Tetthely, while the widely covered Everlasting Love is featured twice on this record! The eternally dissatisfied may rightly miss the long versions of the hits Hiroshima and Don’t Be Aggressive from the cover tracklist, which literally are not on the disc, but are still part of the package. With the help of the key on the 3rd CD, we can access a special Sandra page on the Internet, from where we can save a text biography, five large photos of the singer taken today and a special version of five other hits recorded on the charts. Among these items are not only the two above-mentioned items, each about six and a half minutes long, but also the long version of Nights In White Satin and We’ll Be Together, and even the club mix of Secret Land ’99, which is correct even for today’s ears.
An exemplary summary from the German disco queen: Sandra summed up her career with numerous songs that were once played to death, at least as many that were rightfully left out of Hungarian radio, and rare maxi versions of hit songs – the latter with a total duration of over a hundred minutes! This is truly remarkable!