Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Greatest, Greatest Hits Albums
Posted by David Wright on 23 June 2011 - 11:53am.
We may have been here before, but one of the first albums I was ever given was Queen’s first greatest hits album.
I’ve been listening to a few of my old Queen albums recently and still reckon they were always more of a singles band than an album band. So, personally for myself,their first greatest hits album is still my favourite Queen album. It’s a fantastic greatest compilation and the tracks flow beautifully together. Level Best by Level 42 is another good greatest hits album.
What are your favourite Greatest Hits albums and what acts are suited best to Greatest Hits compilations?
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Thin Lizzy
Weeds the wheat from the chaff to spectacularly good effect. Full of muscle and menace, without the filler.
Thin Madonna
Yes, Thin Lizzy is a good one I forgot about. Although I don’t think she’s made a decent album since Ray Of Light, Madonna’s Immaculate collection is a good flowing greatest hits too.
Nick Cave and the Seeds
Great cheap comp a few years ago, still a terrific intro which I've given to loads of prospective converts, didn't stop me buying ALL of their albums - win-win for the band.
Dint know they had a greatests hits
Although I do have the terrific 3 cd boxset of B sides and rarities. Great band though.
It is fine
- early copies came with an excellent free live cd too.
Ash.
Intergalactic Sonic 7s. It's bloody marvellous. Much as I love "1977", and I do, nobody needs any further Ash albums when you have the joy of all their singles in one place. It's a great listen.
I was just about to say that
Seeing them tour at this time (at Glastonbury '02) was really special.
Generally not bothered about them, but this album is fantastic. Especially Charlotte Hatherley's backing vocals on 'Envy'
Seconded.
A fine band and a fine Greatest Hits.
Bargain
Currently available as an MP3 download - in the double CD format - for £2.99 on Amazon.
or...
... £29.99 from iTunes!!!
Upped and agreed
a stonker. I'm also v partial to Belly's best of for similar reasons. Best of James too - maybe a little over long but better than any of their albums.
Quo...
Gotta be.
And Richard Thompson possibly.
Agreed.
'12 Gold Bars' was the first record I played endlessly. Then followed by Queen's Greatest Hits, then followed by ELO Greatest Hits Vol 1.
Light Years The Very Best Of ELO
Double Cd with 38 great tracks on it,superb
Also XTC-Fossil Fuel although it doesn't have the best tracks from Apple Venus and Wasp Star on it.
I also like Retrospectacle-The Supertramp Anthology 32 great tracks
Oh Also 38 Carat Collection by Prefab Sprout
The Very Very Best Of Crowded House
Shame There isn't a proper Wilco greatest hits/anthology although The Kicking Television live album comes close
The Very Best Of Elvis Costello great compilation
Light Years
Maybe Don't Walk Away was a bit weak, but 37 out of 38 absolute stormers is pretty impressive. All killer and no(t much) filler.
I'd also mention The HJH's 1. Not much dross there either, but there's more about that later...
The Stones Forty Licks, BUT only disc 1. Too much filler on disc 2
And finally, ABBA Gold. More Gold less so, but even that has plenty of good moments that other bands would have surrendered limbs for
Crowded Best Of Market
I didn’t even realise, until it was out, that Crowded House had released another Best of album ,after the recurring dream compilation . I don’t think there’s any tracks I haven’t already heard on the latter though. As an aside, the track Recurring Dream, is one of my favourites.
Controversially....
..I'm going to suggest a non-greatest hits album that fullfills the same function - The Human League's 'Dare'.
Whenever England are about to be knocked out of a major football tournament someone always plays the game of how mnay England players would get into the opposition's starting 11 (it's usually none or, at a pinch, Ashley Cole).
Play the same game with 'Dare' and ask how many of their subsequent songs are good enough to replace an existing track on the album.
Anyone suggesting 'The Lebanon' will be harshly deal with.
What about all of the pre-Dare stuff?
There's certainly a few tracks that would deserve to be on any putative Best Of Human League album.
Being Boiled, certainly...
I'd probably also have Human, Mirror Man and Fascination in in place of Do or Die, Seconds and Darkness. Would break the flow but are better songs.
Same name...
...but different band as far as I'm concerned. I actually think both Seconds and Darkness are better than some of the more famous hits on the album. I might grant you Do or Die though. And I'm not sure whether the Get Carter theme really counts.
I'll stick up for The Lebanon.
Top pop record. And a bugbear of mine is the way people pick on
"Where there used to be some shops is where the snipers sometimes hide" as a 'worst lyric' when it is actually a pretty tidy desription of the breakdown of normality and is factually correct.
I do get what you're saying about "Dare" - in terms of one album having most of what you want it's one of the best..
Surely that should be just
'Lebanon'?*
*Blog cross-pollination alert.
Human
Love is all that matters.
Life on your own.
Keep Feeling Fascination
Self-serving question Dr V
But did my tweet about them on good old, knowledgeable, male* radio presenters' show Radcliffe and Maconie inspire that second choice?
*IRONY KLAXON
Quite A Few Spring To Mind.
The Pretenders, Kinks, Pet Shop Boys, ABBA - anyone who was a great singles band really.
The Beatles
All you need's "One" really, innit?
**grabs hard hat, runs**
Nah Red and Blue Albums
Even That Doesn't Cover Their Genius
Oldies but Goldies on MPF
Everything after Revolver was noodling....
Have to agree with 'Twangers'
'One' and Red' and 'Blue' are superior to all their studio LPs. I like the first two LPs and most of The White Album, but once they stopped doing covers there are too many fillers
The only one that didn´t have a cover was The White Album
*Takes last sip of beer, get´s coat, notices it rains and hails a cab*
What About Abbey Road ?
kills two birds with one stone
Yeah, but...
The problem with '1' was working out what to leave off. Doesn't change the fact that what is on there is pretty much impeccable
The Clash
There isn't a Clash album that doesn't make me want to switch to 'The Story of ...' instead. Specially as there are some good non-album singles on there.
Forget Fopp
Yesterday I bought the greatest hits of Rush and Styx for £3 each in Asda. I also got the Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler and the new Queen compilation CD Deep Cuts, described as "digging deeper into Queen" in a "2-for-£8" deal. Actually the Queen should have been £10.97 but they had put it in the wrong section and honoured the lower price when I pointed out their error.
Now where did I put my air guitar..?
Simon and Garfunkel
That one with the picture of the two of them walking on a beach. Never heard anything else by them that made me want to shell out for a "studio album".
It's not actually them on that beach
Those are lookalikes, shot from a long way off.
I believe that is also true of ...
... the cover of Milli Vanilli's Greatest Hits.
Deep Purple
Deepest Purple is a near perfect collection.
Purple Heaven
Yep,it's a strong collection, no fillers either.
Nirvana (the American one)
The derided corporate cash in that was their Best Of (from 2002?) is great. It's only about 55 minutes long and the sequencing makes it feel like a proper studio album. It has a great flow as it winds through the different eras. One knock out song after another.
The actual albums make me shrug with indifference - including Nevermind.
"Death to the Pixies"
...gets the thumbs-up from me. Although many Pixies fans would say that "Dootlittle" and "Surfer Rose" are essential in their own right...
THAT...
...is an excellent call. Through the medium of Death To The Pixies, I managed to get pretty much all my friends to become diehard Pixies fans. That's the mark of a good Greatest Hits, isn't it?
A band who knew all about the loud/quiet/load dynamic
What's particularly good about this album is how well sequenced the tracks are so that you always play the whole thing.
Frankly
Anyone who ain't a diehard Pixies fan off the back of one of a number of Pixies singles ain't worth the bother. Greatest hits is gilding the lily. I do of course own the 4x10" version of Death to the Pixies. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Snap!
Every now and again, it is necessary to caress it.
I still have...
...my vinyl copy of "Come On Pilgrim". I've not seen another - most copies are stuck on the end of Surfer Rosa. I have a little ogle every once in a while.
Maybe ogle is the wrong word: very very hair-backed men aren't really my type.
Come round to my house
If you want to see another one, there's one on my shelf next to Surfer Rosa. I've split them as seperate albums in my MP3 library as well, it only seems right.
My vinyl copy of Come On Pilgrim
Came with one of those nice plastic sleeves, which it still has, making it easy to find in my completely disorganised vinyl boxes. Think Surfer Rosa is the only Pixies album I don't have on vinyl (them was also the days of cassettes for me, I might still have the cassette) - which gives me a sudden urge to hit Ebay - I do have two copies of the Rosa/Pilgrim CD though...
The Very Best Of Al Green
19 tracks from 1971 to 1976. It makes you feel warm on a rainy day.
The Cure...
I would maintain that for an all-round enjoyable yet doom-laden listen it is hard to better Staring at the Sea - The Singles.
Yes
That's an excellent call. Good cover too.
Standing On A Beach
borrowed from the library ensnared me...
The Cure - Greatest Hits - Acoustic
This was a 2nd CD that came with the Greatest hits and it is absolutely superb.
The Pogues
Their Best Of evens needs a Rest Of to fit it all in.
Buzzcocks: Singles Going Steady
Even the B-sides are brilliant. Except Noise Annoys.
yes and no
yes it's great..
no..noise annoys is also great..
"Noise Annoys"
... doesn't.
"Something's Gone Wrong Again" is even better.
Very good choice.
Want a smoke...
"Want a smoke, it's my last 50p"
How old does that make you feel?
(maybe it's time to redux the 'lyrics that show their age' thread)
doesn't matter
the machine is broke..swallowed my last fifty pee
yes it is better
"whatever happened to?" is even bettererer
for me
The following I think are outstanding, beating any respective albums, but I've been wrong before...
Leftfield - A Final Hit
Paul Weller - Modern Classics
Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits
Faith No More - This Is It
James - The Best Of James
NWA - The Strength Of Street Knowledge
The Long Blondes - "Singles"
Suede - Singles
All fantastic.
Two from James
The Best Of James
Fresh As A Daisy
The Beach Boys
Pick any one from around forty or fifty. Probably.
Apart from the third disc´s second half
This covers both hits and their lost second peak, from 68-71 when they were actually a band. A small shame It´s About Time and Feel Flows didn´t make it. Well, at least they didn´t include Student Demonstration Time. What? D´oh!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Platinum_Collection_(Sounds_of_Summer_Edition)
Divine Madness
Of course we had Complete Madness (79-82) and then Utter Madness (82-86) and then in 1992 with Divine Madness that compiled both albums and kick started the renewal of love for Madness after six years away. The band reformation and triumphant Madstock gigs secured their place as one of Britain's best loved pop groups
However, for the more hardcore Madness fan, it sort of spoiled the concerts for a long time because they only seemed to play the hits because they had so many and rarely played album tracks or new stuff. I think that has changed a bit now.
Divine Madness
I wasn't a fan 1st time around but this is cracking. 24 tracks and you will know them all.
All killer
an extraordinary run of singles.
The best greatest hits is...
Scooter - Push The Beat For This Jam.
It needs updating with all the Stadium Techno, Jumping All Over The World and Who's Got The Last Laugh stuff though.
A few favourites of mine
Once upon a time: the singles - Siouxsie & the Banshees ( "Twice upon...; not so much but it's OK )
Snap! - the Jam
Singles 81>85 + 86>98 - Depeche Mode
These belong to the category "All You Need Greatest Hits", as opposed to the "Starting Point Before You Buy Their Entire Back Catalogue"-category inhabited by for exemple the Kinks Best Of comp.
Ooh......Snap!
Brilliant compilation along with the little live EP. Them were the days...
Pop Art by the PSBs
Not necessarily for the third disc of remixes in the edition I've got, but the first two are tremendous.
sums it up.
Kevin Eldon's laughing man...
...is one of my very favourite things about Partridge.
Squeeze 'Singles 45 and Under'
I know there are longer/fuller comps of theirs, but this is a perfect album for me.
Completely agree...
so long as it's the version that has Labelled with Love on it.
Buried treasures
I'll go for greatest hits LPs that kept bands available when they had otherwise disappeared from view, and so were the only way to discover them at the time...
Electric Prunes Long Day's Flight (Edsel LP)
Kaleidoscope-Bacon From Mars (Edsel)
Seeds-Evil Hoodoo (Bam Caruso LP)
Scott Walker- Boy Child (Fontana)
Also 'Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground Featuring Nico' (the one with the Coca Cola picture) must be the best ever VU comp.
On the other hand, Singles 81-85 by Depeche Mode is also fab.
I Forgot The Go-Betweens
1978-1990 great collection
It is indeed a fine collection, Mr Radio, sir
... but in my view the Go-Bewtweens were such an utterly fab band that a man also needs at least "Spring Hill Fair", "Tallulah", "Liberty Belle" and "Oceans Apart" to gather a decent quota of gems.
I Agree
And Would add,Before Hollywood,16 Lovers Lane and The Friends Of Rachel Worth but it is a great Anthology which I don't think is still available anymore
Yes, indeed
- so just to sum that up, fellow Massivers: if you want to get all the good Go-Betweens tracks, you'll have to acquire ALMOST EVERYTHING they recorded. Take it away Grant...
"I recall: a schoolboy coming home through fields of cane
To a house of tin and timber
And in the sky a rain of falling cinders..."
James Yorkston
Played a great early Go-veterans track, Karen, on his Domino Radio show the other week. Prob still up on line somewhere.
"Karen"
Their first B-side - the A-side is the equally wonderful "Lee Remick".
Agree with the above - great comp., and includes one of my all time favourite Go-Bs songs, "This Girl Black Girl". A great B-side band.
Supergrass
Although I own most of their back catalogue, I've just ended up putting together a 'Singles' playlist on my iPod and this is really all I need.
Show of Hands
Roots, The Best of
Oysterband - Trawler
Tom Waits - Brawlers, bawlers and bastards (compilation of lesser known stuff but pretty bloody good)
One of my fav albums.
For me it has to be Legend - Bob Marley.
The Summer of 1984
Los Angeles Olympics on the telly; "Legend" on the stereo. (Not on our stereo, to be honest: the lady who lived across the road bought it when it came out and practically turned the grooves grey through overplaying during that long, hot summer. She made me a cassette of it in exchange for a cassette of my copy of "Thriller." I even remember that it was on a blue Philips C90. This from the man who doesn't even know his own National Insurance number by heart.)
Depeche Mode The Singles
Volume 1, and the first disc of volume 2 up to Walking in my shoes, after which it gets a little patchy with the aptly named ' It's No Good' and ' Useless'.
Mott The Hoople
The one that came out circa 76. 5 tracks per side. A couple of album tracks to fill it out. All CBS, no Island.
It was the only album that still united us punk kids down the youth club come early 1977. We were split on everything else. Then the punk albums came along.
Best of The Divine Comedy
is one I still keep dipping back into. Has all the tracks I'm ever likely to want.
lest we forget
10cc greatest hits..
As good as that might be
it cannot disguise that fact that that "1" looks like a cock.
It just does
Given the origin of their name...
...that's hardly surprising and probably deliberate.
The Smiths
"Singles" is a fantastic compilation. Nary a wrong note on't.
Hitsville USA
Tamla Motown singles are always great (I know it's a box set but so many Motown singles are that great).
My favourite Stones 'album' is Big Hits (High Tide & Green Grass) UK version.
This Is Soul from the Atlantic Label is brilliant.
And Reggae, the Tighten Up & Chartbusters are consistently brilliant but if I had to choose one it would be Duke Reid's Treasure Chest.
Collected Gems
John Lydon - Best Of British £1 Notes
Jam - Snap
Wreckless Eric - Greatest Stiffs
Ramones - Anthology
Rolling Stones - Rolled Gold & Jump Back: The Best Of '71-'93
Slade - The Collection/Very Best Of
Sweet - Originals: The Best 37 Glam Rock Songs Ever
Wings - Greatest Hits
Who - Ultimate Collection
The Best of Blondie
Never fails for me
Coldplay's Greatest S***S
We all know it's coming one day soon. Good for some people, bad for others. Their new single is pretty poor, just waiting for a snare drum to come in, but it never happens. It will be on all the BBC Glastonbury highlights very soon no doubt. Last album and first album were pretty good though.
wrt the OP's final question
Certain shiny pop makers do lend themselves to the "all the hits" format but of late more serious artistes have been better served by the "An Introduction To.." and double cd "Essential.." series'.
After all, what do they know of Nick Drake who only hit singles know?
Mcluskyism
Woke me up to one of the great bands of the last decade. After they'd split.
Good job Future of the Left are just as good.
Super Furry Animals
Songbook. Vol 1
Packed full of scorching under performing pop singles, Such an under rated bunch.
Alice Cooper Group
Alice Cooper Greatest Hits the original band's last release
Sorry if I missed any of these...
...scrolling down -
The Best of Roxy Music is a brilliant album, especially as the compilations released before that mixed in Ferry's solo stuff with the Roxy material. This one is just the band. Amazing. It may (as with me) be one of those that forces you to buy all the albums, though.
An 'all you need' greatest hits might be the 2CD Fela Kuti best of. I admit I went off and bought the box set eventually but I did get a bit obsessed. The compilation has sensible versions of his best-known tracks, all brilliant.
If you ever wonder
"Why is Dave so obsessed with Del Amitri?" What's that? You don't. What never? OK bad start, but take a listen to "Hatful Of Rain" (the greatest hits) that comes with "Lousy With Love" (lots of B-sides) and the answer is there among some of the most beautiful, heartfelt, songs your ears will ever have the pleasure of hearing.
Hey Tonight..
features most of what you need from Creedence Clearwater Revival, great band.
Also the Byrds' The Collection is rather good.
And for toe dippers: Classic Yes, great band.
Marvin Gaye
My favorite greatest-hits collection is one by Marvin Gaye that starts in the 60's with I Heard it Through the Grapevine and Ain't That Peculiar and Hitchhike and ends in the 70's with What's Going On and Mercy Mercy Me and Got to Give it Up and Sexual Healing etc. It's phenomenal.
The best of the best of
Jam - Snap
Bowie - Changesonebowie (original vinyl)
Roxy Music - Greatest Hits (original vinyl)
Lou Reed - Walk on the Wild Side (RCA original vinyl)
Magazine - Rays and Hail
Bob Dylan - Greatest hits vol II
John Cale - Guts
Beatles - Red and Blue
Rolling Stones - Hot Rocks (although Forty Licks is pretty close)
Flamin Groovies - Groovies Greatest Grooves
Buzzcocks - Operators Manual
Zombies - Best of (London Records 1982)
Led Zeppelin - Mothership
Tom Waits - Beautiful Maladies
I can't believe I've just scrolled through this thread
And not seen a mention of Nick Lowe!
Philistines the lot of you!
Graham Parker has a pretty mean GH package as well.
Nick Lowe
Obviously nobody would have mentioned Nick Lowe because none of the tasteful massive bought his most recent best of.... because we all have everything on it already! I'd already forgotten it came out!
ChangesOne and ChangesTwo (Bowie)
Listen to these and then tell me afterwards that he isn't a genius.
If you do, I will question that judgement and look at you in new and less favourable light.
The Pretenders
The Singles
all good except the duets
Guided By Voices
Human Amusements At Hourly Rates.
Fantastic selection of songs, brilliantly sequenced. Given GBV's insane overproductivity and dozens of LPs, this is probably the most essential one-stop shop in this entire thread.
Hits comps......
.....can be like eating too much candy all at once (especially Beatles' ones).
I rather like the As and Bs approach that Ace did with the Everlys, Little Richard, The Zombies and Fats Domino, and this approach seems curiously to make the 'hits' stand out more.
I'd love to see a Bowie As and Bs from '64 (Liza Jane) to '71 (Holy Holy) compilation with all the R n B, Mod, 'Anthony Newley', Arnold Corns, Italian 'Space Oddity', flop 45s on Philips/Mercury in one place.
Couple more....
OMD's Greatest Hits - collating the brilliant singles from '79 - '86
Echo & The Bunnymen - Songs to Learn and Sing
CSN&Y
So Far...
maybe a bit cheeky to do a best of with 2 albums and a non-album single to their collective names but....it's rather good. And it was a long time until the larger "Carry On" selection from the collective - which is essential for its superb full version of "Almost Cut My Hair" (with, as it happens, the best bit of "studio chat" to appear on any Album...ever).
Gene - As good as it gets
Not just a great best of, one of my favourite albums of all time.
wtf people?
All this way and no mention of obviously the greatest greatest hits of them all namely Aretha's Greatest Hits - Aretha Franklin.
Side 1
Spanish Harlem (3:30)
Chain Of Fools (2:45)
Don't Play That Song (2:48)
I Say a Little Prayer (3:30)
Dr. Feelgood (3:18)
Let It Be (3:28)
Do Right Woman - Do Right Man (3:15)
Side 2
Bridge Over Troubled Water (5:31)
Respect (2:26)
Baby I Love You (2:39)
(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (2:39)
I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) (2:47)
You're All I Need to Get By (3:34)
Call Me (3:18)
The defence rests M'lud.
Steely Dan - Showbiz Kids
many retrospectives have been released, by in my opinion this double album contains practiculary all the choice cuts.
currently available on amazon for a mere fiver .
Jazz
I haven't checked every post on this thread, but I don't remember seeing a single jazz Greatest Hits album mentioned. Looking at my jazz collection, the only best-of compilations I seem to have are from the swing era, such as:
But when it comes to the giants of modern jazz, their music seems particularly ill-suited to a one-hour Golden Greats disc. How do you distill the output of geniuses like Monk, Mingus, Miles or Trane into such a constricted format? I don't think you can.
Couldn't agree more, duco01
I remember Blue Note putting out a series of totally inadequate 'best-of' compilations recently. The series was called something like 'Finest', and they were all single CDs. So you'd have a featured artist like Lee Morgan, and after something like six tracks, the CD is full. Waste of time.
That said, I thought the 'rarum' series of compilations that ECM put out came very close to getting this right - particularly with the artists choosing their own performances. Did you pick any of those up? People on the roster who've released 286 albums, like Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek, got 2 discs to play with, and those two in particular made sure that a wide range of their work was represented.
(The ACT label seem to be doing something similar with their Signature Series, including Ulf Wakenius, Nguyen Le and Viktoria Tolstoy among others.)
Shorts Weather
Marillion Shorts is probably my greatest greatest hits at the moment
Discovered jimi Hendrix when I was perhaps 14 or 15
The Ultimate Experience:
All Along The Watchtower
Purple Haze
Hey Joe
The Wind Cries Mary
Angel
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Foxy Lady
Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
Highway Chile
Crosstown Traffic
Castles Made Of Sand
Long Hot Summer Night
Red House
Manic Depression
Gypsy Eyes
Little Wing
Fire
Wait Until Tomorrow
Star Spangled Banner (Woodstock)
Wild Thing (Monterey)
For someone who had just started to play electric guitar, this was pretty how-did-he-do-that. Not that I know now...
The 1968 Hendrix 'Smash Hits' wasn't too shabby either
The first four singles, their b-sides and a taster for Electric Ladyland.
Pretty good getting a compilation out there just two albums in
But then Sex Pistols have made eleven compilations and live things, including a box set, out of that one album they managed. Impressive.
Doubly impressive...
...considering they only had three good songs. ;-)
Teenage Fanclub anyone
4 thousand sever hondred ....seconds or whatever it was called.
Tis a cracker, I tells ya.
Roxy Music Greatest Hits
Excellent songs and order of tracks.
Even the song edits are more than acceptable.
The wonderful Kirsty
The Best of Kirsty MacColl from 2005
How awful it is when the last track 'sun on the water' finishes and the terrible irony of that last number sinks in...
ooh and "Stereo-typical"
fantastic triple disk of A's, B's and rarities by Coventry's finest - The Specials
My Fave Greatest Hits for Long Journeys...
Any Sly and the Family Stone Compilation...So many brilliant songs...
Supergrass is 10 - What a singles band...
The Undertones - A and B sides - a stick-on-shuffle and sing along classic.
Andy Williams
In The Lounge With is faultless
Chuck Berrys Motorvatin'..
Chuck Berrys Motorvatin'.. my first.