Experience the Divine

Infobox Album
Name = Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits
Type = Compilation album
Artist = Bette Midler


Caption = US edition
Released = June 22, 1993
1996 (Re-release)
Recorded =
Genre = Vocal
Length = 50:35
66:27 (Re-release)
Label = Atlantic Records
Producer =
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:anfyxqwgld0e link]
*Robert Christgau Rating-Christgau|cut [http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Bette+Midler link]
Last album = "For the Boys"
(1991)
This album = "Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits"
(1993)
Next album = "Gypsy"
(1993)
Misc = Extra album cover 2
Upper caption = Alternate cover
Type = Compilation album


Lower caption = International edition

"Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits" is a compilation album by American singer Bette Midler, featuring many of her best-known songs. The fourteen track compilation was released on Atlantic Records in 1993.

While several "greatest hits" albums with Midler had been released in the UK, Continental Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand and Japan throughout the 70s and 80s, such as "The Best of Bette" (1978) and "The Best of Bette" (1981) - two different compilations with the same title - and "Just Hits" (1987), this was the first career overview to be released worldwide including the US and Canada, some twenty years after Midler recorded her first studio album for the Atlantic Records label. The album included one new recording, Midler's Emmy Award winning rendition of "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)", sung to retiring talk show host Johnny Carson on the penultimate "Tonight Show" in May 1992. "Experience The Divine: Greatest Hits" peaked at #50 on Billboard's album chart in 1993 and was three years later certified platinum for one million copies sold in the US.

"Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits" was re-released in Europe, Australia and New Zealand in 1996 with a slightly altered track list, then also including two of Midler's biggest hits which for some reason had been left off the 1993 edition; "My Favorite Waste of Time" and the Rolling Stones cover "Beast of Burden", both from the 1983 album "No Frills". The 1996 edition also included two versions of the US hit single "To Deserve You", taken from what became Midler's final studio album for Atlantic, 1995's "Bette of Roses".

Track listings

1993 edition

# "Hello In There" (John Prine) - 4:17
#* From 1972 album "The Divine Miss M"
# "Do You Want to Dance?" (Bobby Freeman) - 2:44
#* From 1972 album "The Divine Miss M"
#"From A Distance" (Julie Gold) - 4:37
#* From 1990 album "Some People's Lives"
# "Chapel Of Love" (Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, Phil Spector) - 2:53
#* From 1972 album "The Divine Miss M"
# "Only In Miami" (Max Gronenthal) - 3:57
#* From 1983 album "No Frills"
#"When A Man Loves A Woman" (Calvin Lewis, Andrew Wright) - 4:42
#* From 1980 album "The Rose"
#"The Rose" (Single version) (Amanda McBroom) - 3:40
#* From 1980 album "The Rose"
# "Miss Otis Regrets" (Cole Porter) - 2:39
#* From 1990 album "Some People's Lives"
# "Shiver Me Timbers" (Live version) (Tom Waits) - 4:42
#* From 1977 album "Live at Last". Original studio version appears on 1976 album "Songs for the New Depression"
#"Wind Beneath My Wings" (Larry Henley, Jeff Silbar) - 4:52
#* From 1988 album "Beaches"
# "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (Don Raye, Hughie Prince) - 2:19
#* From 1972 album "The Divine Miss M"
# "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" (Live) (Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, additional lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Bette Midler) - 4:06
#* Previously unreleased. Recorded and aired on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" on May 21 1992.
# "Friends" (Mark Klingman, Buzzy Linhart) - 2:55
#* From 1972 album "The Divine Miss M"
# "In My Life" (Single version) (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) - 3:12
#* From 1991 album "For the Boys"

1996 edition

#"To Deserve You" (Single Remix) (Maria McKee) - 4:11
#* Original version appears on 1995 album "Bette of Roses"
#"Beast of Burden" (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards) - 3:48
#* From 1983 album "No Frills"
#"Favorite Waste of Time" (Marshall Crenshaw) - 2:40
#* From 1983 album "No Frills"
# "Hello In There" (Prine) - 4:17
# "Do You Want To Dance?" (Freeman) - 2:44
# "From A Distance" (Gold) - 4:38
# "Chapel Of Love" (Barry, Greenwich, Spector) - 2:53
# "Only In Miami" (Gronenthal) - 3:57
# "When A Man Loves A Woman" (Lewis, Wright) - 4:54
# "The Rose" (McBroom) - 3:34
# "Miss Otis Regrets" (Porter) - 2:39
# "Shiver Me Timbers" (Waits) - 4:42
# "Wind Beneath My Wings" (Henley, Silbar) - 4:53
# "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" (Prince, Raye) - 2:19
# "One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)" (Arlen, Mercer) - 4:06
# "Friends" (Klingman, Linhart) - 2:55
# "In My Life" (Lennon, McCartney) - 3:12
#"To Deserve You" (Album Version) (McKee) - 5:13
#* From 1995 album "Bette of Roses"

Production (1993 edition)

* Bette Midler - compilation producer
* Arif Mardin - compilation producer
* Scott Wittman - creative consultant
* Doug Sax - digital remastering at The Mastering Lab
* Greg Gorman - cover photo
* Rod Dyer Group / Qris Yamashita - art direction