Compilation albums are a strange beast. Often a cynical mish mash of crowd pleasers and a few odds and sods, they can precede an artist’s downfall. Surely as big of a warning as a covers album.

Bryan Adams So Far So Good felt different. I was acquainted with Bryan Adams that well until his Robin Hood ballad (not even gonna type the song) managed to infect every ear. No hate to the track, but his duet with Sting and Rod Stewart for the three musketeers’ flick is a much better track.

It wasn’t until I fully listened to So Far So Good that the old “ah, it’s this guy!” reaction came up. Cuts like a knife, can’t stop this thing we started, run to you, somebody…. wait, a duet with Tina Turner? Yes, it’s a greatest hits collection, but for a beginner it was a great introduction to the dude.

Early 90s ballads had a lot of production in them and do sometimes mush themselves into an artificial feeling. I don’t think it applies here. Sure, there’s a crisp overproduced sensation, but Adams’ lyrics and vocals are so warm, it feels genuine, like when falling in love with that certain someone. Everything is illuminated, everything shines. And a happy dog wagging his tail and nosing around the studio. Perfection.

I used to hang a lot at the cafeteria in my high school. It was a chill place, with a tall ceiling, the smell of tortas de milanesa, and a lot of eucalyptus trees blowing with the windy afternoons. This song pretty much lived and breathed with me on that autumn of 93. Autumn was the semester for theatre plays and that year I was doing background stuff and props for Zuzanka’s Game by Milos Macourek. A friend made this egg-shaped costume needed for Zuzanka’s birth in the play, and it fitted me just right. So I dressed up as this giant egg and walked around with two more people, trying to get bums in seats, handling leaflets and for once, predicting the Simpsons.

-Sam J. Valdés López