best ofs and greatest hits

the democratic approach is nice in theory, I think Patti Smith and maybe Bjork did Best Of's like that recently. but the fact is that a GH is, by its very nature, is for casual fans. and the diehards are going to be fussy and contrarian and make an interesting selection, which is fine and good for a homemade best-of mix, but for a stocking stuffer, keep it simple and stick to the singles.

Chronological is important, I think.

Good ones: Leonard Cohen, Donovan, Pentangle, Carpenters

Immaculate Collection is probably the best Greatest Hits ever, and I'm speaking as one who owns Madonna full lengths.

Aerosmith's Greatest Hits, ditto.

Abba's Greatest Hits, ditto.

Neil Young's Decade is of course totally essential for the exclusive tracks.

I'll second Roger's Donovan (I think that's the only place you can find "First There is a Mountain").

Steppenwolf, totally.

The Kinks Come Dancing (original 2lp version) is a good way to wrap up the post Muswell era.

I own just about all the John Fahey records but I still love that Return of the Repressed for the sequencing and just general nostalgic reasons.

The same goes for Kiss' Double Platinum.

The same goes for Echo & the Bunnymen's Songs to Learn & Sing.

A band like the Hollies, you really only need the Greatest Hits.

Anyway, there are tons of good, useful hits comps.

DESTROY: Cheap-o bargain bin "greatest hits" that feature two or three "hits" then a bunch of impossibly obscure tracks that are only on there because they were cheap to license. Basically any tape you buy at the supermarket.

Yeah, an old flatmate of mine had an Animals CD that started with The House of the Rising Sun, then the rest of the CD comprised of horrifyingly bad 80's re-recordings (with very prominent and very very bad synth) of their other hits.

I think singles comps make the best collections. The Smiths singles album is great, as is the one for the Clash. They tend to be arranged chronologically, which, I agree with Roger, is real important, and they show the development of a group's sound. Plus, you know the songs weren't chosen arbitrarily.

sometimes a singles comp might be shit - i mean, i LOVE the boo radleys but i reckon a singles comp would be dire. A b-sides collection would be ace however.

Personally, I don't think chronology is too important in these matters. it should just sound right to the listener.

The two Depeche Mode singles compilations definitely deserve a mention here.

Btw. do you realise the fact that "ABBA's Greatest Hits" contains only "Mamma Mia", "Waterloo", "SOS" and "Fernando" out of their biggest hits?

yeh, those depeche mode ones are ace, although i only have the second one.

chronological vs. creative sequencing i think generally comes down to the arc of the career it's summarizing. if there was a good strong hit or well-loved song on the first album that you can kick it off with, and they had hits from several different albums/period, then yeah, chronological works great. but if you have one of those awkward early periods before things really got going, then you might want to either skip that stuff or mix it in among the hits.

my favorite GH's are Tom Petty (the 17-track one on which "Mary Jane's Last Dance" was the new song...very solid) and Queen (whatever one my folks had growing up...IMO one of the best collections of singles by anyone ever).

Search-"The Best of Sam & Dave" (on Atlantic). It's got all the hits, plus a nice samplng of album tracks and b-sides (21 songs in all). My main gripe is that its only 56 minutes long, so there's room for a few more tracks (most notably "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down" and "Everbody Got To Believe In Somebody") to fill out the disc. Still, it's a good bargain.

Another one I've been digging lately is "The Very Best of Solomon Burke" on Rhino. It's great because its the first time anyone's put the 45 mixes of his singles on CD.

Queen Greatest Hits (1981) is perhaps the greatest greatest hits album ever, although annoyingly it isn't in chronological order, and also it sticks 'we will rock you' and 'we are the champions' on at the very end respectively which just doesn't work for me as the cliche of those two songs being played in succesion and of 'champions' being an ultimate song debases the record as a whole

do greatest hits have to be compiled of actual chart hits? if so best ofs seem very much the rockist's compilation

A thoughtful selection is most important, but they typically are most effective if they reflect the chronologic development also.

"Old style" GH albums had running times in the 40-45 minutes, and while typically a little light, are generally chock-full with only the primest of cuts.

The Who's Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy is probably the best i can fathom -- but standouts might also include The Best of the Guess Who and Blood, Sweat & Tears' Greatest Hits (single edits and all).

Tears for Fears' singles comp is so solid except for "Woman in Chains" and one other one that isn't very good.

Devo has about six greatest hits comps! And a Greatest Misses. The oddest one has a green & black cover, out on BMG, always really cheap. Most of the songs are live, ie a silly acoustic calypso-ish rendition of "Jocko homo" and some studio tracks that couldn't really be considered hits, such as "Post-Post-Modern Man".

The 20th Century Masters collection puts out middling best-ofs. The local record shop stopped selling the back catalogs of most band and just offers these instead – no more albums from the Who or Jackson 5, just these stupid 20the Century Masters discs with all the songs you've heard 2,000 times. It's pretty maddening.

Some GH albums are amazing, and agreed, generally proper (ie earliest to latest) chronological order is hugely important. It pissed me off som much that Take That's GH was in reverse order that I never bought it - take that, major label! Blur's is another fucked-up one, although I'm not sure I actually bought that; Pulp's, mercifully, got it right, even if it did inexplicably miss out some fab songs.

That said, I recommend this, and I don't give a shit what order it's in:

http://www.interq.or.jp/www-user/nltb/sandieshawthebestofsandieshawnothinglessthanbrilliantvtcd34.jpg

(It's Sandie Shaw's Nothing Less Than Brilliant compilataion, in case it's too small - available for peanuts all over the place)