A judiciously-selected two-CD compendium of Peter Gabriel's finest moments, Hit offers a farmore generous windfall than can be found on the only previous Peter Gabriel best-of selection,the 1990 Shaking the Tree. The devil, after all, is in the detail, particularly on the seconddisc (self-deprecatingly entitled Miss), which really traverses the whole gamut of Peter Gabrielsglobally-visioned artistry. It includes recent soundtrack work (the haunting "Cloudless" fromLong Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence), material from 2002's sterling Up("Signal To Noise", featuring a compelling vocal from the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and someominous string arrangements, really does sound like a thinking man's Massive Attack) and goesright back to that fourth album when marrying the reticence of cold, synthesised new wave withinsistent African percussion seemed like a good idea (it was). The first disc--including theMTV smash "Sledgehammer", anti-apartheid war cry "Biko", "Big Time" (interesting how thestyles of Gabriel and his former group Genesis seem to converge at this time) and "Games WithoutFrontiers"--really speaks for itself, although with hindsight it seems the single-buyingpublic-at-large had a particular taste for a certain kind of Peter Gabriel record.Universally excellent throughout, the collection is rendered even more desirable by theinclusion of three previously unreleased tracks: a live rendition of "Downside Up", a shorterversion of "Blood of Eden" and "Burn You Up, Burn You Down", latterly included on a video gameand initially earmarked for the Up album but jettisoned at the last minute. --Kevin Maidment