February 17, 20214 yr The Cure's Greatest Hits is a good example of a Greatest Hits done well, all chronological too - the middle run from “Just Like Heaven” is :wub: which one? they have so many :D
February 17, 20214 yr Author Both 'Galore' and 'The Greatest Hits' are perfect to me, their earlier one is often cited as the essential one but it's the one I like the least
February 18, 20214 yr I always found Greatest Hits albums as a good way of getting into older acts you only know a few songs of, I've never had any interest in a compilation by an act who I've followed. I guess on the basis they're the act I've gone on to buy the most studio albums from following the purchase of a Greatest Hits the best collection would have to be "Singles 93-03" by The Chemical Brothers - it's in chronological order which I agree is always a must, and has the full edits of tracks not radio edits. Obviously it only covers half of their career but the one they released some years later is poor in comparison, missing so much off and with a tracklist that's all over the place.
February 18, 20214 yr I always found Greatest Hits albums as a good way of getting into older acts you only know a few songs of, I've never had any interest in a compilation by an act who I've followed. This is the same for me. It's how I really got into the Carpenters in the last year with their Gold album which is such a gorgeous selection of songs. I don't think I'd ever play a greatest hist from an artist I know well though... There's always too many snubs and fan favourites that I'd miss out on listening to!
February 18, 20214 yr The 30 Biggest Hits XXX is a Greatest Hits album that has fully made me fall in love with Roxette so I'd say it does the job very well in introducing them to new people! Off the top of my head, ABBA's Gold, The Immaculate Collection, Queen Greatest Hits I and II, Best of Bowie, and Prince 4Ever / Ultimate are some of my favourites. One thing I don't like with greatest hits are when they are too specific so they miss out other essential songs (such as Michael Jackson 'Number Ones' and Mariah has one similar too). Also does Madonna's Something to Remember count as a greatest hits or is a compilation album or are they the same thing? :lol: if it counts here, then I love how it structures itself on her greatest BALLAD hits to make it a more cohesive listen through.
February 18, 20214 yr "More Gold" is the best ABBA compilation. Angeleyes, When I Kissed The Teacher, Honey Honey, When All Is Said And Done, Ring Ring, Head Over Heels :wub: "That's Me" still missed. :angry: Edited February 18, 20214 yr by Last Dreamer
February 18, 20214 yr I am gobsmacked that no-one has mentioned Bob Marley's Legend, first released in 1984 where it spent all summer, 10 weeks at No.1. A steady seller ever since though. Okay a Best Of rather than a GH but has all his hits and has sold 30 million copies worldwide, the best-selling reggae album ever. Is This Love, No Woman No Cry, Three Little Birds, Jammin', Satisfy My Soul and so on and on. One classic after another. If you don't own it then why?
February 18, 20214 yr Was thinking now that one GH I really like is Sheryl Crow-The Very Best I bought it cos I really liked her cover of The first cut is the deepest, which was one of the new tracks on the GH I think it's really good, doesn't have all the singles and it's not in chronological sequence, but that doesn't bother me, but on the other hand it has some nice album tracks that were not singles like I Shall Believe
February 18, 20214 yr Greatest Hits have definitely for modern artists become very throwaway and a lot less valued than previously... they seem to occur earlier and earlier in the careers of these artists and groups now too. Dave Gorman's commentary on the Scouting For Girls 'Greatest Hits' is a particularly good take down: :D
February 18, 20214 yr The 30 Biggest Hits XXX is a Greatest Hits album that has fully made me fall in love with Roxette so I'd say it does the job very well in introducing them to new people! Oh my god how did I forget this, I completely agree, their greatest hits is a must for anyone. However I had the 'A collection of Roxette Hits' album which wasn't too different. Another one would be 'Absolute Garbage' by Garbage.
February 18, 20214 yr I love a greatest hits album, i always have enjoyed them especially from artists you like all or most of the output, they are also great for artists where you enjoy some of the singles but wouldn't buy an album, for me id love a black eyed peas greatest hits.
February 18, 20214 yr Author Seeing as I've been buying up a lot of PSB and Erasure 12" singles of late, I thought I may as well go on to this singles collection that I think also does a sterling job. Again it's an accurate document of their career up until the early 90s, neatly lining up all of their singles in (of course) chronological order. It starts rather hesitantly with their first three singles, all are okay but not exactly their best - although it's arguable that Oh L'amour should have been a bigger hit than it was. It's from the next track, Sometimes, onwards that things really began to look up for them as the remaining tracks all made the top 20 in a great run of success. Erasure were my absolute favourite band as a child and I still have very fond memories of these songs - yep they were never as stylish as the likes of the PSBs and I doubt anyone ever thought they were cool, but as an out and out pop act they were pretty darn hard to beat. You can really see the progression in the way they perfected their style, the early songs are pretty flamboyant but perhaps veered towards show territory but in the Circus era they began to write some more complex material - you then journey through the excellent singles from The Innocents (A Little Respect! :wub:) before Stop!ping off at the Crackers International EP before finishing with the Chorus album, my favourite era of the compilation - all four singles were excellent. Oh and of course it also has the ABBA-Esque track too, just for me it's the worst one they could have chosen to include. 06 Who Needs Love (Like That) 06 Heavenly Action 08 Oh L'amour 09 Sometimes 08 It Doesn't Have To Be 09 Victim Of Love 10 The Circus 10 Ship Of Fools 10 Chains Of Love 10 A Little Respect 09 Stop! 10 Drama! 10 You Surround Me 10 Blue Savannah 07 Star 10 Chorus 10 Love To Hate You 10 Am I Right? 10 Breath Of Life 07 Take A Chance On Me 07 Who Needs Love (Like That) (Hamburg Mix) Sadly it stops one single short of Always :(
February 19, 20214 yr I am gobsmacked that no-one has mentioned Bob Marley's Legend, first released in 1984 where it spent all summer, 10 weeks at No.1. A steady seller ever since though. Okay a Best Of rather than a GH but has all his hits and has sold 30 million copies worldwide, the best-selling reggae album ever. Is This Love, No Woman No Cry, Three Little Birds, Jammin', Satisfy My Soul and so on and on. One classic after another. If you don't own it then why? Classic album obv, but I already have the singles and one of the albums. We need a more comprehensive update with Sun Is Shining, and others included :)
February 19, 20214 yr Author I bought Legend last year... and I don't really love it tbh. Reggae isn't a genre that I particularly like but even so it's not as good as I expected it to be from the level of acclaim it gets.
February 19, 20214 yr Here goes... I'll start with a rate and discussion of Discography and Pop! The First 20 Hits because they were both released by my favourite band at the time of release. Pet Shop Boys - Discography 07 West End Girls 09 Love Comes Quickly 09 Opportunities 10 Suburbia 10 It's a Sin 10 What Have I Done To Deserve This? 10 Rent 10 Always On My Mind 10 Heart 06 Domino Dancing 08 Left To My Own Devices 08 It's Alright 10 So Hard 10 Being Boring 07 Where The Streets Have No Name 08 Jealousy 08 DJ Culture 07 Was It Worth It This is obviously excellent, even though I don't play it any more - preferring my Spotify playlist instead as it includes album tracks from Actually, Behaviour, Very and later singles like Minimal and Integral. PopArt is much weaker for me as I liked very little after Very. The only essential single post-Very and pre-Fundamental is Flamboyant, for me. I really get nothing out of the rest. ____________________________ Erasure - Pop! The First 20 Hits 06 Who Needs Love (Like That) 07 Heavenly Action 08 Oh L'amour 09 Sometimes 08 It Doesn't Have To Be 08 Victim Of Love 08 The Circus 10 Ship Of Fools 08 Chains Of Love 10 A Little Respect 08 Stop! 09 Drama! 09 You Surround Me 09 Blue Savannah 07 Star 10 Chorus 10 Love To Hate You 08 Am I Right? 10 Breath Of Life 07 Take A Chance On Me 08 Who Needs Love (Like That) (Hamburg Mix) This is great - but again, I have my own best of playlist on Spotify which includes Always, I Love Saturday and Fingers and Thumbs. I maintain that from 1990 to 1995 there was no better pop band than Erasure. I'm generally not a fan of 80s Madonna but I've come around to appreciating Into the Groove and Papa Don't Preach. They put the real ploddy mix of Like A Prayer on The Immaculate Collection. :sadface: Celebration is much better. ABBA Gold is amazing but everyone knows that. Girls Aloud - Ten was an excellent update on The Sound of Girls Aloud because it removed some of the songs I didn't like, added the singles from 2007/2008/2009 and presented the whole thing in reverse chronological order which is exactly what I would have done. :wub: The Cure's Greatest Hits is great but I do also love Staring at the Sea. New Order's Substance would be up there for me - the only skippable song on it is Thieves Like Us. Apart from that we get 12" versions of some of the best singles that came out in the 80s. The Best of and Singles are decent too. The Very Best of Stone Roses is an example of almost flawless compilation despite not being my favourite. It brought together the highlights of their scattered catalogue in once place. It was sequenced it such a way that the singles from The Second Coming were not totally outshone by the rest. It left nothing out that could be deemed essential. It summed up a career that (at the time) was very unlikely to be added to. There was very little superfluous on it but it still managed to come to nearly 80 minutes of music so no-one could quibble about being short-changed if they purchased it. It was booked ended by the same four tracks that booked ended their debut. A perfect execution. The Smiths - Singles is similarly comprehensive and a whole lot better than The Very Best of - which makes a lie of its title. Enya's Paint the Sky With Stars is great when you get past Orinoco Flow and better than her The Very Best of - which also makes a lie of its title. I'd like to talk about a few other artists and their adventures in compilation. Manic Street Preachers' Forever Delayed was missed opportunity. While what they included on it is fine music, it really should have been approached in more balanced way. It undersold their pre-Everything Must Go material. Judicious track selection and intelligent sequencing could have rendered it as great a summary as any non-fan would need. They seemed to be intent on having 20 tracks on it so some of the tracks were shortened to fit them all in. National Treasures did the job better even though the last quarter of it is not great. A similar botched job was done when Tori Amos released her Tales of a Librarian 2003. Like Forever Delayed, including 20 tracks seemed to be more important than any other consideration. Bizarre track selection too - 2 dull new tracks for obsessive fans, album tracks and b-sides that were nowhere near her best work and the remix of Professional Widow disrupting the flow. She deserved better. Kate Bush needs to update The Whole Story. She's had 4 albums since then with some great singles on them. Plus her Peter Gabriel duet. I really don't know why it didn't occur to anyone to release it in late 2014. If done right it would not look as if it was an opportunistic release. Muse, Coldplay and Rihanna have all missed their chance at releasing a perfect Great Hits compilation. If they do bother to put one out now, they'll have to include later, weaker material. Muse and Coldplay should have released theirs in 2010. Rihanna in 2013. The KLF may still do one. Unlikely, but a hell of a lot more likely than it used to be. Finally. in August last year Suede released their 4th compilation. While earlier compilations were very very good, I think that their latest is the best. The 2 disc set has the following as its track listing on CD 1 01 The Drowners 02 To The Birds 03 My Insatiable One 04 Metal Mickey 05 Animal Nitrate 06 So Young 07 Pantomime Horse 08 Stay Together [long version] 09 My Dark Star 10 We Are The Pigs 11 Killing Of A Flashboy 12 Heroine 13 The Wild Ones 14 New Generation 15 The Asphalt World 16 Still Life I don't think there will ever be a better account of any band's first 3 years taking into account that this includes in 7 tracks from my favourite ever album and the flashes of genius of their debut. Edited February 19, 20214 yr by Colm
February 19, 20214 yr ^Tori Amos - Tales of a Librarian must be in contention for worst Best Of ever. The most bizarre thing is they excluded Caught a lite Sneeze!! :o Alanis has a very strange Best Of too that missed most of her singles, cannot recall the title now... and Bjork's Greatest Hits didn't include her biggest hit It's oh so quiet :o so moral of the story, stay away from Alt_Divas Greatest hits :D
February 20, 20214 yr As they are mentioned Erasure, Pet Shop Boys and Enya all have great graetest hits albums, i would also add Sinead o O Connor to that. Again as they are mentioned, Rihanna, Muse, Coldplay all should release Greatest Hits, Rihanna could have released one to fill a gap in the last few years, black eyed peas, mel c, Ac Dc ( i know the band wont allow it) metallica, beyonce, alicia keys and possibly Katy Perry all could do with releasing one.
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