Shocking Blue – The Best of Shocking Blue (1986):  Shocking Blue, from the Netherlands is one of my all-time favorite bands, offering stellar songwriting by Robbie van Leeuwen for a tight rock band with an arresting lead singer, Mariska Veres.  My Wikipedia name is “Shocking Blue”; and I named my bichon frisé “Robby van Leeuwen”, after Shocking Blue bandleader Robbie van Leeuwen and Robby the Robot from the landmark science fiction film Forbidden Planet (1956).  The Best of Shocking Blue is I believe the first Shocking Blue album that I bought; for reasons that I don’t actually recall, I put off my purchase of their American album The Shocking Blue (1970) for a number of years – an odd album title since the band doesn’t use “the” in their name, even on the record label for this album.  The Best of Shocking Blue is a Dutch album that came out 16 years after their worldwide #1 hit song “Venus”, the biggest hit song by any rock band from continental Europe.  The Best of Shocking Blue was probably created when the remake of “Venus” by the British band Bananarama also hit the top of the charts in 1986.  A third version of “Venus” by a Japanese singer named hitomi came out in 2005; while not a hit song over here, her version was featured in commercials for the Gillette female razor line called Venus beginning in 2006 (and might still be).  Finally, the curious band Stars on 45 (also from the Netherlands) had a Number One hit in 1981 consisting of a medley of Beatles songs. The opening chords from “Venus” are played at or near the beginning of this song (often called “Stars on 45 Medley” or “Beatles Medley”); arguably, then, “Venus” made the top of the charts on three occasions by three different artists – a feat no other song has ever achieved.  The Shocking Blue version of “Venus” is also notable for appearing in two major motion pictures that were released in the same year (1995), Grumpier Old Men and The Brady Bunch Movie.  In 2020, “Venus” was featured in an episode of The Queen’s Gambit that was set in 1967, or two years before the song was released in Holland.  When first playing The Best of Shocking Blue, I noticed significant differences in the basic sound of the songs that indicated to me that Shocking Blue had a long career in Holland.  As far as we knew on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, “Venus” was their only hit.  I found a few interesting items here and there, but it wasn’t until we went on our trip to Europe in 1995 that I was able to locate a sizable number of Shocking Blue albums.  Besides the albums that I found on that trip – not just in Dutch record stores but also those in France – a Nederpop superfan sent me several LP’s to round out my Shocking Blue collection.  When I was gathering up the albums from the yard that went through Hurricane Katrina, my Shocking Blue albums were the ones that I set aside first.  The Best of Shocking Blue features many of my favorite Shocking Blue songs; besides “Venus”, they include “Long and Lonesome Road”, “Shocking You”, “Never Marry a Railroad Man”, “Inkpot”, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”, and “Send Me a Postcard”.