The late, great Tina Turner was able to create a persona of pop’s ultimate survivor, mainly due to the publication of her 1984 memoir I, Tina and the 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It, which explored some of the adversity the legend faced in her life, including surviving a violent marriage with Ike Turner, the man many credit for her initial success. After they split in 1976, Turner had to rebuild her career, recording music while doing the cabaret circuit and appearing on cheesy variety shows.

The diligent work paid off when, in 1982, she joined synth-pop outfit B.E.F. to record a cover of the Temptations’ “Ball Of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today)” and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” which brought her back to the charts, as far as the top 10 in the U.K. and top 40 in the U.S. It wasn’t until her comeback album Private Dancer, in 1984 that she cemented her solo superstardom. In the decade between Private Dancer and Brian Gibson’s 1993 biopic, the rock diva became one of the most iconic performers of the 1980s and early 1990s, with a series of hit albums and chart-topping singles and arena tours.

What’s Love Got To Do With It was a popular hit, selling over a million copies and giving the singer another hit with “I Don’t Want to Fight” (co-written by fellow ’60s songbird Lulu). It’s an odd album, a mixture of new songs and re-recordings of some of her previous material, to accompany the film’s rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-superstardom narrative. As played by Angela Bassett, Tina Turner was an inspirational figure who faced crushing abuse and emerged triumphant—so a lot of the music is pitched to that inspirational theme. What’s Love Got To Do With It doesn’t work as a stand-alone album—the many compilations out there do a better job of anthologizing Turner’s incredible catalogue—but it’s a better-than-average release. So, it’s a bit surprising that it’s getting a 30th anniversary re-release; a generous five-disc release that includes a treasure trove of material that augments what was a stop-gap between her studio album releases.

The soundtrack in its entirety is here, and it’s fine. The new material is solid ’90s-era Tina Turner. Some Turner enthusiasts will suggest that her superstar solo work, while successful, wasn’t artistically as innovative or exciting as the rock-soul she sang with Ike in the 1960s. After the success of Private Dancer, Turner created a musical sound of her own—and yes, it’s emotional and sometimes sentimental. Her solo work in the ’80s and ’90s often featured synth-heavy pop ballads that were very tasteful, bringing out an interesting contrast between Turner’s whiskey-stained growl and the beautiful, gleaming production. The album’s hit single is precisely the kind of record that Turner would be identified with during this late-career era: exquisite, elegant, with vaguely inspirational lyrics that are general enough to work as a love song but also allude to her troubled past. The revisits of her older material are good—her voice hadn’t aged much in the 20 years or so—but the re-recordings feel superfluous, and suffer from the overly-clean ’90s production.

The draw of his re-release is the glut of extra tracks, which include remixes and live material. Depending on how much one seeks remixes, it’s great to hear some alternate versions of the album’s singles. The 7” edit of Turner’s cover of Trampp’s “Disco Inferno” (which scored Turner’s ’70s career purgatory in the film) is a fun house-pop reimagining; there are also several versions of “I Don’t Want To Fight,” including a mid-tempo R&B version dubbed the Urban Mix that would sound at home on early ’90s urban-pop radio; other remixes of the singles don’t alter the sound of the single significantly; the Jerry Moran Dance Mix is solid, low-key dance-pop that sounds like something Lisa Stansfield would have recorded during this time. The remix portion of this album is good, though it would have been great if other D.J.s were commissioned to produce material as Turner’s relationship to her queer and club audiences was legendary, and it would have been great to hear more dance material on the release. The remixes are fine, but nothing stands out.

The biggest coup of this release is the live material. Two discs are devoted to Turner's concert work, recorded at the Blockbuster Pavilion in San Bernardino, California, in September of 1993, during her What’s Love? Tour in support of the soundtrack album. A recording of her live work doesn’t capture the full power of her stage presence, but it’s still worth listening to her masterful performances of her music, which often gets a harder reworking from the more antiseptic studio versions. Her singing is far less mannered, and she seems to be enlivened by the audience, so even a so-so song like “Steamy Windows” becomes an urgent, strutting rocker live. The live album works as a greatest hits compilation, and it’s pretty awesome to hear the breadth of this woman’s incredible work.

The quality varies, of course. Her explosive performance of the self-penned “Nutbush City Limits” is a marvel. But she also has to give her audience what they want, so included are some of her hits which haven’t aged as well, particularly the hollow “Typical Male.” Also, she introduces material from the film, and though the songs are good, they pale in comparison even to the ’80s material.

None of the material on What’s Love Got To Do With It is essential, and casual fans won’t necessarily be drawn to this album. It’s more for completists. For a better overview of her work, folks should check out 2004’s All The Best, one of the few releases that condenses her work from the 1960s to the 2000s (just after she retired). What’s Love Got to Do with It feels a bit unnecessary, especially in light of the far more exciting work that she put out before and after, but still, it’s Tina Turner, so there’s going to be some fantastic music, even if it’s not simply her best.

Rating: B-

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