The Best of Bread

If they are to believed, David Gates and the other members of Bread never intended to become the enduring icons of a subgenre they virtually invented: soft rock. Indeed, scattered throughout this expanded edition of a perennial bestselling catalog album are tuneful evidence of their original intent, as one band mate said, "to make the '60s last a little longer." But it's the familiar, largely Gates-penned and -sung hit singles that remain the band's legacy, from "Make It with You" through the reunited band's last hurrah, "Lost Without Your Love." Though they've become oft-mocked clichés, these are singles informed with a rare, often complex melodic sense, delivered with a deceptively breezy tone by one of pop's purest tenors. Gates and Bread clearly colored artists as diverse as '80s MOR icon Christopher Cross and nouveau singer-songwriter David Mead. --Jerry McCulley