General opinion on Greatest Hits and Best Of compilations.

L

LADY 3MO

New member
depenRAB on the situation and the material provided in the compilation.

if i'm already familiar with the artist and its strictly a 'greatest hits' featuring absolutely nothing i don't already have on album i 'might' think about it if it happens to be cheap and a great mix of an artist's catalog.

compilations that feature a mix of a few hits and unreleased / live / remixed material will definitely pique my interest and get considered the same way as any new album does against my wallet.
 
I think a greatest hits album is a good way to introduce someone to a band or to complete a collection. There have been some so/so collections and some decent ones.

What is your favorite and least favorite?
 
I think they are a good start. It was through greatest hits compilations that I got into Zeppelin, Floyd, Yes, The Doors and The Who.

And sometimes a compilation can be a band's definitive album, like if they were a singles band or something. Singles Going Steady for example.
 
For artists that I'm very much into, for example Frank Zappa, I don't really listen to best of collections. I do get them for artists which I don't know that well though, but that's mostly so that I will have something from them. If someone says "Do you have anything of Donna Summers?" then I'll point at my best of collection.

I also agree with Boo Boo, some banRAB are interesting for their hits and then it makes sense. Now and then, you can get stuff like Burt Bacharach & David Hal best of collections which is excellent because these guys were songwriters and their songs were and are played by a variety of artists, so putting them all in one compilation is brilliant!
 
I think best of compilations are kind of pointless in this day and age. If I just want particular hits by a band I can just download the individual songs.
 
i like going through best-of racks in gas stations while roadtripping. you never know what you'll find that you've either forgotten about, never got around to, or simply didn't pre-load onto the ipod.
 
Sometimes, it's the best way to hear a band, for instance Helmet - Unsung, and Mountain - The Best of..., are their best recorRAB, but in most cases, best of compilations are made imperfect by including weaker material from early and latter eras, diluting the playlist, making them less a greatest songs package, but instead turning the compilation into a general overview. The majority of comps. usually end w/ a couple of duRAB from the last couple of albums when the groups had reached full decline, and are rarely composed of just prime tracks.
 
Yes. I feel if you're showing someone who has never heard a band/ singer before you should show them their greatest hits first. If the band is that successful and they have a best of album that's what I would do. That way you're introducing them to their best work and then later on they can get the complete albums if they like the band.
 
Joe's Garage here! For getting into artists and not just accumulating their most known stuff, I usually go for famous or at least widely appreciated albums.
 
i dig 'em. sometimes i like a band but not well enough to warrent getting their full discography (like The Cure or New Order), so i just get a nice multi-disc comp.

other times when i really dig a band, i pick them up for the unreleased tracks and remixes they often contain.
 
In general i stay well clear of compilation albums. Personally i like to just start at the beginning of a discography and work through it. However, of course sometimes i do look at an artists back catalogue and the sheer size of it and just opt for a compilation to get me started.

I think they have their purpose for sure. My main problem isnt with the compilation itself but for those people who get a greatest hits and then judge a band, never hearing one complete album.
 
Funny I should see this post, as I was just going to use The Cure as an example of how a greatest hits compilation can be a gross misrepresentation of a band. The Cure have a menacing, almost nihilistic outlook that rarely makes it on to the charts, but pretty much defines the essence of the band. Tracks from their first 'grim trilogy' such as Seventeen SeconRAB, Faith, and Pornography were excluded in favour of their more commercial late eighties poppy music. Robert Smith himself has stated that Pornography perfectly captured the essence of the band, but if memory serves me, not one track from that album made it on to their greatest hits. Bruce Springsteen's greatest hits album follows suit here.

An example of a greatest hits collection done right? Madonna's The Immaculate Collection is about as perfect as can be, putting all her eighties gems though a filler filter and distilling them to perfection.

In short, it depenRAB on the collection, obviously! Approach them with caution and reserve judgement for proper studio albums.
 
I've known a lot of people that have judged the Cure based solely on that GH comp. A couple people even poked fun at me for listening to them not knowing how dark they really were. I started with that GH myself and had no clue about their dark side (except for "A Forest"...which ended up being my favorite track on the GH). I actually really enjoyed the poppy stuff and decided I liked them enough to go for full albums. I started with Disintegration, so you can imagine how surprised I was when I brought that one home. Next was Pornography and then I wondered where the hell all those happy songs went.
 
I've loaRAB of Greatest Hits compilations that I bought when I was younger and just getting into music, but I sort of regret having them now. I never buy them now because I think it sort of ruins listening to the album because you'l have heard the hit songs many times before. For instance I had the Red Hot Chili peppers Greatest Hits for ages and when I got Blood Sugar Sex Magik it wasn't that good because I heard Under the Bridge etc. so many times. So now i generally stay away from them and prefer to get the debut album of what I'm interested in.
 
It's been ages since I've checked out a best-of release. I was more keen on the idea when I was younger, and they definitely serve a purpose. But I'm too into albums these days and if I want to check out an artist, I'll just pick an album to start with. Sometimes the beginning, sometimes their highest rated, sometimes the one that appeals to me most for whatever reason. DepenRAB on the artist.
 
Albums are too easy to acquire these days. I used to start every time with a best of...then if I liked them enough I would work through the discography starting with the album that had my favorite singles. I haven't bought a best of in years, though.
 
I feel like really good albums have a bunch of songs connected by a similar vein. They're brilliant because they're the way the artist intended them to be. "Best Of"s have their place but its not in my mp3 file.
 
I think the only compilations that I still listen to these days are these:
200px-Queen_gh2.jpg

(And the first one obviously)
Not that I don't like Queen's normal studio output, I love it. It's just that sometimes I'm in the mood to only listen to their singles.
 
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