The daughter of jazz legend and crooner extraordinaire Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole was commercially reincarnated in her father's (dead) image in the early 90's, becoming a rich woman and a boring pap merchant in one culturally mortifying swoop. Before that, though, Cole conducted a successful career in the 70's and 80's as a straight-ahead rhythm & blues singer. Beginning with the effervescent "This Will Be" and the funky "Sophisticated Lady," she scored quite a few hits before she retired to easier listening pastures. Smart shoppers need only pick up her best material, and a number of good collections have come and gone over the years, most notably This Will Be: Natalie Cole's Everlasting Love (1997). The more recent, two-disc Anthology (2003) is, if anything, a more than adequate sampling from a merely adequate talent (cheap, though).

Inexplicably, none of those albums contain her 80's hits (like "Pink Cadillac") for Manhattan Records, which is owned by the same evil conglomerate (EMI) as Capitol, Cole's label during her her 70's prime. An incomplete sampling from her whole career is available, however, on Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (2000), but the later material drags down the whole affair.

Concerning Natalie Cole's popularly-acclaimed later work, especially Unforgettable (1991), her snooze-inducing tribute to her father: save yourself the frustration and go buy a proper Nat "King" Cole album.