Rising to modest fame with her surprise hit, "Stay (I Missed You)," which was featured in the 1994 film REALITY BITES, New York City-based singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb charmed audiences with her bookish, bespectacled persona and sugary-sweet alt-pop tunes. This 2006 collection draws largely on cuts from Loeb's first two Geffen albums ('95's TAILS and '97's FIRECRACKER), including the delicate aforementioned song and the energetic "I Do." The disc also surveys her later work for smaller labels and includes the previously unreleased "Single Me Out," a fast-paced, guitar-driven track that served as the theme song to her own reality-TV show. True to its title, THE VERY BEST OF LISA LOEB is all that fans and curious listeners could ask for in a single-disc retrospective.

Lisa Loeb had only one big hit and it was with her first single "Stay (I Missed You)" -- a tune that took her from obscurity to minor celebrity when it was included on the soundtrack of Reality Bites. Although she never had another smash hit, "Stay" was hardly the end of her career: she continued to release records every few years, racking up five additional chartings singles that usually appeared in the lower reaches of Billboard's Hot 100, and a bit higher on their Adult Top 40 charts: 1995's "Do You Sleep?," 1996's "Waiting for Wednesday," 1997's "I Do," 1998's "Let's Forget About It," and 2002's "Underdog." All six of those charting singles, along with album tracks and significant soundtrack contributions (like "How," which wound up on both the Twister soundtrack, where it was originally intended, and on Jack Frost the Michael Keaton classic about a jazz musician who is reincarnated as a giant talking snowman so he can set things right with his son), on 2006's The Very Best of Lisa Loeb, which also includes the brand new "Single Me Out," the theme song from her '06 reality show #1 Single. While Loeb never strayed very far from the sweet, gentle template she laid down with "Stay (I Missed You)," she always was friendly, melodic, and rather ingratiating. These qualities are better heard on The Very Best of Lisa Loeb than on her proper albums, which can tend to be a little samey and sugary. Those tendencies aren't completely absent here, but distilled to her best songs, Loeb is an endearing folk-pop singer/songwriter, as this enjoyable collection proves. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine