TS: "An Introduction To..." VS "The Essential.." (FITE of the rockist best-ofs!)

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Both relatively new series, both seem to be all about giving a "thoughtful" selection of an artist's most important tracks instead of just slapping on the greatest hits; both also focus mainly on non-singles artists.

The "An Introduction To..." series has featured Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, 10cc and The Velvet Underground. "The Essential", meanwhile, has weighed in with volumes on Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Santana and Janis Joplin.

I like the sound of "An Introduction To..."- it's so wonderfully pretentious, it makes me long for a not too distant future when Pop music will have become totally stuffy and geeks like me can walk into a record store and buy A Selection Of Singles From The Works Of Trick Daddy or whatever; the track selections are a bit dreary, tho- I mean, look at the VU one! No "Heroin"!

"The Essential...", meanwhile, seems to be a better bet, despite the rather generic title. The Dylan one is ok as far as these things go (if you like Dylan a Greatest Hits probably just won't work for you); I actually purchased the Leonard Cohen one, and I think it's fantastic (also someone on ILM said that it pretty much makes buying any of his albums redundant?); I'm considering buying the Janis Joplin one, too, she's the kind of artist that lived in an album era but didn't really make great albums.

What says ILM?

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Saturday, 19 April 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

"An Introduction To" is a good title given that a compilation (particularly as far as this particular kind of artist goes) works as kind of a taster, that will make you decide whether to invest in that artist's material or not.

As for "The Essential", it seems Sony will be making "essential" compilations of all of their biggest acts anyway. Remember there is an "Essential Neil Diamond", "Essential Billy Joel" and "Essential Alison Moyet" too. Strange that they have yet to make a 2 CD of Bruce Springsteen though, but I am certain it is just a matter of time anyway.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 19 April 2003 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

"The Essential..." endeavors to have that catch-all finality of being the ONLY material you will EVER NEED by an artist, whereas "An Introduction To..." implies you are just at the beginning of a long, life-affecting journey.

Equally dubious!

― gazuga (gazuga), Saturday, 19 April 2003 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"The Essential..." endeavors to have that catch-all finality of being the ONLY material you will EVER NEED by an artist,

Definitely not the case with the Bob Dylan and Miles Davis 2 CDs anyway....

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 19 April 2003 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i have the john cale introduction to,and i like it,although since it is the only album by him that i have i can't really comment on track selection or whatever..

― robin (robin), Saturday, 19 April 2003 22:53 (twenty-two years ago)

This is a great thread question Daniel

Gazuga's right, both propositions are dicey - I disliked greatest hits albums as soon as I first heard of them, when aye were but a young rockist more interested in how the band had conceived of the song-sequence than in just hearing the songs that had most impressed their public. "An Introduction to..." has some potential merit, if done really carefully: a good compiler of "An Introduction to..." might actually have a good reason for leaving off essential tracks like "Heroin" (or, if it were an essential New Order, say, for leaving off "Blue Monday").

I think more insight into an artist might result from the compiling of "The Inessential [insert artist name]" albums -- certainly the case with Dylan, a potentially interesting project with Randy Newman I think

OK that's enough outta me I'm going back into exile

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Saturday, 19 April 2003 23:19 (twenty-two years ago)

See also Rhino's The Essentials series of 12-track best-ofs on a handful of artists (so far): Devo, the Meters, Foghat, others I can't remember.

― M Matos (M Matos), Sunday, 20 April 2003 07:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Thats fine. Rhino has better taste than Sony. But its a shame they limited themselves to only 12 tracks per artist.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Monday, 21 April 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Sony's Essential series are of Sony acts anyway.
However, it has become usual for major label to give away the back catalogue of certain acts to Rhino because Rhino has such a good reputation for their liner notes and sound.

I dislike Rhino's "mono is superior to stereo" attitude when it comes to 60s recordings though

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 21 April 2003 12:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Just burn your own comp, really. These things make less and less sense over time.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 21 April 2003 14:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I dislike the idea of burning CDs more and more with each passing day, almost as much as gettin' movies from the internet. It's not a copy-kills-music thing, more of a feeling that in making everything free you somehow lose the sense of value in art...like, when friends tell me that they just downloaded the entire Roxy Music ouevre or movies that haven't even gotten to the cinemas here yet, it just disgusts me, I know that sounds stuffy, but it just does.

Also, it's a geek thing: the idea of owning a shelf with five or six albums saying "The Essential..." next to each other is much more appealing than a bunch of ugly CDRs.

(The Rhino compilations mentioned here are a total red hering, as they are not rockist in the least.)

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 21 April 2003 15:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I make my own single artist "portable" CD-Rs. They consist of up to 82 minutes of my favorite tracks from a particular artist in chronological order of release - that way I get my favorite tracks on a single disc and I get to think about the artist's development as well.

I actually have 4 discs for New Order, each one being a different "history." I have 2 for Spacemen 3 because of things like their 17 minute long cover of "Rollercoaster".

I only put on tracks that I really like to listen to, so some artist discs are short. Simple Minds comes in at just over 60 minutes and that's with a couple extended versions.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 21 April 2003 17:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I do the same thing, Spencer. For me it's a way of dealing with bands whose "good" stuff is spread across lots of albums and mixed in with so much "bad" stuff that I don't bother listening to it -- especially if my idea of the "good" stuff differs significantly from what I'll find on an official compilation.

― Paul in Santa Cruz (Paul in Santa Cruz), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:16 (twenty-two years ago)

The 'Essential' CDs turned me off straight away because they seemed to feature artists that you wouldn't want a compilation like that for, because it just doesn't seem right. (Miles - how can you capture the moods of so many radically different records on a single compilation and call it essential; Dylan - Daniel probably explained it best in the question.)

But the 'Introduction' CDs seem a lot more valid. There's no pretence that they hold any value for someone who's already a fan, but if done well they can be a great starting point. I've got a couple that are OK (Traffic, Steve Earle) but the one that justifies the entire series on its own is the Sandy Denny compilation. I bought that in an HMV sale without having heard anything by her before (barring a couple of Fairport tracks) and I couldn't believe how stunning her solo stuff was. Absolutely brilliant, so obviously it did the job.

― James Ball (James Ball), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 06:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm all for homemade comps but I do think there's something great about hearing others' versions of an artist's output--lots of compilers know the ouvre well enough (and have access to unreleased stuff sometimes that's pretty illuminating) to teach you things you wouldn't necessarily come up w/on your own. Robert Palmer's Elmore James compilation on Rhino is a good example of this; multi-artist-wise so are Anthology of American Folk Music and Ocean of Sound. Not discounting your versions, just arguing for the other side's appeal.

― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 06:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually, I do quite a bit of research while compiling the things; that's a big part of the fun. For most of the artists that I make "portables" for, I'm familiar with the entirety of their work. The internet has made my task possible, as I'm able to find and consider rarities, live stuff etc.

I agree wholeheartedly about multi-artist comps, and those are the only things that I buy anymore with any regularity. The folks at SoulJazz, Nuphonic, Strut etc are my heroes!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Most of the "Introduction to" comps I've heard have a) not introduced me to diddly, and b) were miles from definitive. Exception: "An introduction to Nick Drake" is a great distillation.

I tend to avoid "Essential" collections. It's not because they're not sometimes useful. It's because the covers are never pretty enough. I'm not kidding.

Mostly, I make my own comps. I have fun titling them. "Killer Pixies." "Get Crazy with the Cheez Whiz: The Best of Beck." And I have fun imagining that the comp I'm making is not a comp at all, but a single, legendary album.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I tend to avoid "Essential" collections. It's not because they're not sometimes useful. It's because the covers are never pretty enough. I'm not kidding.

b-b-b-but that's where the new Sony series comes in!

http://www.chaosmusic.com/product_images/763302.jpg

http://www.webheights.net/essential/cover.jpg

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Speaking of funny compilation titles that never were. Q, in some 97-98 number, were foreseeing the end of the century, by predicting Blur's release of "End Of a Century - The Best Of Blur".

Sadly, that title was never to be.. :-)

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

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