The Best, the Best, the Best of You
Reissues, like strawberry shortcake, can be sweet. The deluxe edition of the Monkees' Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. that Dave Nuttycombe just dropped off at my desk, no doubt an abashed peace offering for his cretinous bashing of the band last month? Sweet!
But let's get real. I don't see myself making it through the recent Genesis 1976-1982 box set again. I'll let Leitko fritter away his nights on deep cuts from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway–I want to hear "Abacab," "No Reply at All," "Invisible Touch," and "Misunderstanding" (ooh-we-ooo).
Lately I've been thinking about the greatest-hits sweet spot–artists whose best-known songs tell, if not their entire story, enough of it for almost everyone. I'm sure I'm not the only rock critic who got into music via greatest-hits records (mine were The Kids Are Alright, the red and blue Beatles collections, and, uh, Urgh: A Music War). All of those spidered out into further explorations, but that's not something I could see happening with, say, Journey, whose best-of I will totally download from iTunes next time I have too many beers and my wife has gone to bed.
There's an argument to be had about how many songs you have to be able to recognize before popping for an artist's greatest hits–our arts editor says eight, though I bought Status Quo's Twelve Gold Bars on the theory that since I liked "Rocking All Over the World" the other 11 songs stood a better-than-even chance of ruling, too–but I especially have to tip my hat to groups like Poison, who not only have more songs you remember than you realize (seriously, check it out) but who also have thrown in a bonus cover of Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band," a fact that is beyond argument.
Bonus songs are typically the achilles hill of best-ofs, rarely living up to titles like Willie Nelson's Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be). Usually you get stuck with some crappy open letter to the next generation by Bob Seger. So here's to the artists who not only recognize that their careers be summed up neatly in a mid-priced package but throw in a bonus track or two turns a simple survey into a one-disc box set. I'm starting a list of greatest-hits albums to buy right here.
- Motley Crue
- Scorpions
- Boyz II Men
- Madness
- Pet Shop Boys
- Kool & the Gang
- Nearly anything with "20th Century Masters–the Millennium Collection" in the subtitle, except the Joe Walsh one, which doesn't have "Life's Been Good" for some unimaginable reason
Chime in!
11:11 am
Bob Marley's "Legend" is the quintessential only-disc-you-need greatest-hits album. So is Madonna's "The Immaculate Collection." You're wrong about the Pet Shop Boys, who are much better than "Discography," but I've been fighting that losing battle for years.
A lot of 50s and 60s R & B singers are perfect for the format: Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Sam Cooke--though neither of the two big Cooke best-ofs seem to have "A Change Is Gonna Come"!
11:42 am
I have to side with Mark on the "how many songs" issue. When presented with a similar Status Quo scenario (I just wanted Pictures of Matchstick Men) I decided against buying the greatest hits. I just couldn't imagine that the guys who put out an album called "Thirsty Work" had any other songs I wanted to hear. Maybe I was wrong.
None the less. In high school I lived and died by greatest hits records. The Sly and The Family Stone greatest hits (which I bought solely on the strength of the cover), the sort of awkward but kinda good Grateful Dead comp "Skeletons in the Closet," and the Al Green greatest hits. I also really worked the Talking Heads "Sand in the Vaseline" set, but I think since that was two CDs it qualified as an anthology.
2:08 pm
Pet Shop Boys are best-represented with PopArt, the fairly-recently-released-in-the-States retrospective. Their albums have had some spectacular highs, though: Behaviour is a great study in synthetic melancholy and their latest, Fundamental is a stunner.
7:00 pm
I just spent 15 minutes typing a witty reply that got ate by the ether. Take two.
In any case AB, down with your trifecta of "Urgh" "Red/Blue" and "Kids" if you substitute (geddit?) "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy". As far as your suggested greatest hitters, take out Madness and Kool & the Gang and you'd be pressed to get a decent single disc out of the rest. Crue? Please. Now let's talk about a Diamond Dave specific VH........
I will keep mum on the Genesis/Journey thing, though I'm high fiving all the way, all the day. Well maybe more for one than the other. Is anybody listening?
Mark, "Legend" is missing the live version of "No Woman, No Cry" making it a non starter. Plus if you live within 10 miles of a college campus you can still hear this gratis almost at will. I say that as a Marley fan.
If you're of a mind "Sam Cooke Portrait of a Legend" contains "Change". It's the whole reason I bought the damned double disc thing.
Aaron, I have to say enough of the Heads stuff can stand on it's own that it's almost worth owing everything up to and including "Little Creatures". I've been knee deep in "Remain in Light" recently. I clapped my lugs on "the Great Curve" no less than four times in a row this very summer. Head meltingly delicious.
KC, I happened to hear so PSB recently and was reminded that while the tunes that hit were nice (basically one single and one album track) the rest is mighty slim pickins.
12:25 am
Don't know if it's still the case, but in the mid/late-'90s, the barrel-stirring mid-price CD compilations "Universal Masters" (not to be confused with "Global Dominators") squeezed out some "two-sided" two-band best-ofs.
That's right: your "best" can't even fill a full disc, we figure. So you get a half. And a check you weren't expecting. Or your manager does.
Of course they might as well have been programmed by the temporary secretary to an intern. "OK, Electric Prunes and Hamilton Joe Frank & Reynolds. Any Top 40 hits and fill in the rest. Let's say six . . . no, five tracks each.
Running time: 49 minutes. Disc capacity: 80 minutes.