** John Hiatt

THE BEST OF JOHN HIATT

(Capitol)

Now that John Hiatt has been covered by Jewel and has been on a Travolta film soundtrack (both with "Have a Little Faith in Me," which leads off this set), critics are no longer allowed to gripe about his not being more famous. Unfortunately, the re-recording of "Faith" on this collection is one of the tackier things Hiatt's ever done -- overproduced and sentimentalized, it's guaranteed to make you think "I hope he doesn't stick a gospel choir on this" about 15 seconds before he does. To his credit, Hiatt's tunes usually aren't that tidy. His love songs are often built around something rough and real, whether it's the jittery rhythms in "Thing Called Love" (which rocks harder than Bonnie Raitt's cover) or the lack of a happy ending in "Feels like Rain."

This generous collection is less a "greatest hits" (since he's never really had any) than a random selection of good songs from previous albums, with a couple more remakes and new ones thrown in. But it leans strongly toward one side of Hiatt: the well-adjusted, country-pop family man. His more interesting maverick side is largely passed over -- there's only one song from his pre-sobriety Geffen albums and nothing from the underrated Little Village project or from last year's wonderfully loopy Little Head. The standouts here are "Slow Turning" and "Tennessee Plates," on which Hiatt connects with two of rock's weightiest topics: the aging process and Elvis. Both songs originally appeared on Slow Turning (the follow-up to the better-known Bring the Family), which remains the high point of Hiatt's career.

-- Brett Milano