Like Nico, Astrud Gilberto’s everywoman voiced has always had a polarizing effect on critics and fans alike. While her take on bossa nova is less than reverent and decidedly lightweight, the warmth and approachability she brings to each performance is stunning.

Verve’s lovingly compiled - and blissfully affordable - Astrud Gilberto’s Finest Hour is as solid a collection of her heady mixture of samba, jazz and pop as you’re likely to find. Twenty songs, including the classic “Girl From Ipanema,” wash in like waves from the warmest of oceans, carrying with them the soft, reverb-drenched soundtrack to summer.

If the tropical heat of “Berimbau,” the lazy and lonely pulse of Burt Bacharach’s “Trains and Boats and Planes” and the upbeat swing of “Wish Me a Rainbow” don’t instantly take the drudgery of your day away, then consider yourself hopelessly bitter.

Track listing:

1. Goobye Sadness (Tristeza)
2. Girl from Ipanema
3. Meditation
4. Face I Love
5. Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)
6. So Nice (Samba de Verao)
7. Felicidade
8. Photograph
9. It Might As Well Be Spring
10. Wish Me a Rainbow
11. Fly Me to the Moon
12. Crickets Sing for Anamaria
13. Who Needs Forever?
14. Insensatez
15. Berimbau
16. Come Softly to Me/Hushabye
17. Trains and Boats and Planes
18. Canto de Ossanha (Let Go)
19. Im Nothing Without You
20. In the Wee Small Hours