Prelude: The Best of Charlotte Church (CD) by Charlotte Church

CD.

Even in the youth-conscious era of the turn of the 21st century, there couldn't have been too many best-of compilations issued by 16-year-olds.

But Charlotte Church had been recording regularly since she was 12, with a reported ten million albums sold worldwide (including one gold and three platinum certifications in the U.S.), which seems to justify this hour-long stock-taking effort, when you throw in "All That Love Can Be," from the soundtrack to A Beautiful Mind, and, inevitably, four new recordings.

Talking sales may be crass when discussing a classical artist, but not a classical crossover artist, and Church (or her advisors) made the decision early that she was going to pursue a career in the popular market that would make use of her voice in public long before some opera company might have gotten around to featuring her.