Compilations that were so good you started buying the back catalogue stuff

Am going through my compilation to sell off records and realised that while I adored the Smith's best of CD I bought in university and know it off by heart, I never listened to the albums I bought of theirs. Weird. Ditto led zeppelin. Think I just kept them as I like the covers. Also just cant be bothered to make that investment either. So I liked them enough to buy the albums, but not listen to them.

*going through my collection

Weirdly did this with al green too. Must be a habit. Why he disappointed after the perfection of greatest hits comps?

Alternative Tentacles - Let Them Eat Jellybeans

also

The two "The Indie Scene" comps for 1978 and 1980 were total gateways as well

One Kiss Can Lead to Another. I went on to buy a zillion more girl-group CDs.

Yellow Magic Orchestra had a comp called "Kyoretsu na Rhythm" which I thought was amazing (despite the final track being a pretty lame - and extremely long - "Megamix" track). I liked it so much that I decided I didn't need to hear anything else by the band, then later decided I did in fact need to hear everything else they did, and then a few months later everything the individual members did as well

xpost One Kiss is the best comp ever.

Rhino's DIY comps were a frickin revelation.

Orbital had a comp called Works which was like that, I bought it and immediately bought 4 more CDs the next week

Arthur Russell - First thought, best thought

Al Green - Greatest Hits

This happened to me twice with Felt. I had been intrigued by what I'd read about them and when their compilation Absolute Classic Masterpieces came out -- collecting the first half of their career -- I was bowled over and quickly picked up all of their early records. Then I left it at that, figuring that their later stuff couldn't be any good after the departure of guitarist Maurice Deebank. Later on, an article in Record Collector convinced me to try Bubblegum Perfume -- a compilation of their later work -- and I became obsessed with them all over again and hunted down the rest of their discography.

An alternative version of this would be bands/artists whose compilation you love but never bothered checking their back catalogue.

Why he disappointed after the perfection of greatest hits comps?

fwiw the Smiths comps during the band’s lifetime are almost entirely non-album material, they just sound like hits collections bcz most of the b-sides are great too

The Cure: I was working up at my Grandad's garage one summer and after I got paid, I remember rushing up to John Menzies in Paisley before it closed and buying the cassette versions of Staring At The Sea (with the B Sides included) and Concert/Curiosity, I'd only heard the Cure live at Glastonbury '86 on the radio but was hooked after that, it was a good chunk of music too, for less than a tenner.

Steely Dan Greatest Hits. After buying up the catalog I gave the greatest hits to a friend and then regretted it when I realized that I no longer had a record with FM on it - been looking for the OST in dollar bins ever since.

Same as Maresn3st, also Lonely is an Eyesore a couple of years later

Kate Bush: The Whole Story, at age 18. Scott Walker: Boychild at age 22 - though it was a few years until Scott 1-4/TTBCI got reissued, I think, perhaps post-Tilt. By which time I probably wasn't expecting the surfeit of Jack Jonesy/Michel Legrandish MoR on those early records! I did this with Sandy Denny years later, but I don't think I got much more out of her catalogue than that original Island comp.

Probably too many compilations to count. With most bands, as a teenager, I would start with greatest hits and then explore further if I was intrigued enough. Was pretty hard to sample music before buying back in those days, so compilations seemed a safer bet

With the Smiths, I started with Best of I and II, then bought a couple of the albums (obv with some overlap of songs), then ended up buying the damn Smiths Complete and I hope it ends there

St. Etienne's _Too Young to Die_ and LLoyd Cole and the Commotions' _1984-1989_. Passing familiar with St. Etienne before, and loved a few _Easy Pieces_ tracks, but both comps led to buying everything backwards and since.

Kinda stunning that nobody's mentioned New Order's Substance yet. First thing I heard by them, and bought Low-Life and Power, Corruption and Lies soon after, and then the following year Technique came out.

that's a very good call.

There was a compilation designed to complement Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces that I found in a pawn shop. Mostly first wave post-punk I didn't otherwise see discussed much in the '90s. I was young and certainly hadn't read the book, but Shouty Women On Rough Trade etc became my new favourite genre.

I rarely purchased compilations from individual artists. They mostly seemed like redundant purchases with the exception of the likes of JD/NO Substance, where the singles barely overlapped with longplayer content.

Arthur Russell - First thought, best thought

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 18 March 2021 05:12 (seventeen hours ago) link

This was not the first Arthur Russell release I picked up, or even the third, and idk if it really qualifies as a 'compilation'. But this was totally the one that reeled me in as well, before that Arthur Russell had been more of a cursory interest.

I mentioned this in the PINK FLOYD RULES thread already, but a bootleg compilation known variously as 'CD full of secrets' or 'Floyd Light Rarities' got me going with Pink Floyd's back catalog.

One Kiss Can Lead to Another. I went on to buy a zillion more girl-group CDs.

― beer drops on my keytar (morrisp)

Same, but for me it was 1984 with the documentary Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound and the soundtrack album Motown released:

The Shangri-Las - Leader Of The Pack
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Stop! In The Name Of Love
The Shangri-Las - Give Him A Big Kiss
Mary Wells - My Guy
The Dixie Cups - You Should Have Seen The Way He Looked At Me
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Come See About Me
The Shirelles - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
The Velvelettes - Needle In A Haystack
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Dancing In The Streets
The Angels - My Boyfriend's Back
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Back In My Arms Again
The Dixie Cups - Chapel Of Love
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Baby Love
The Shangri-Las - Remember (Walkin' In The Sand)
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
Diana Ross & The Supremes - Someday We'll Be Together

Interesting that there's one relative unknown (You Should Have Seen The Way He Looked At Me) among all the hits--it's a great song.

Over the next few months I picked up a lot of Greatest Hits: Dusty, Chiffons, Shirelles, Phil Spector, Martha & the Vandellas, Supremes.

1984 was also a year when Rhino and Ace started putting out girl group comps like "Wonder Women, Vol. 1, 2 & 3," or the UK import "Where the Girls Are" full of great obscurities like Cake "Baby That's Me" and the Sapphires "Let's Break Up for a While." There's at least 3 tracks I love on there that have never shown up on CD--c'mon Ace, in the dozens of comps you've put out over the years, you couldn't find a spot?

Huh, interesting… I never knew about the original Where the Girls Are LP. (I have all the CDs, of course!)

c'mon Ace, in the dozens of comps you've put out over the years, you couldn't find a spot?

This web page seems to hint at the reason:

the record stands up pretty well today, and contains titles by Bernadette Peters, Robin Ward, Dorothy Berry, the Crampton Sisters, Orlons, Bon Bons and Barbara Chandler that have yet to be issued on CD. I’d propose a repress, but those tracks aren’t so easy to license these days, alas.

Out of curiosity, what are the tracks you love that have never shown up on CD? I’d like to look ‘em up on YouTube...

I bought Substance when Technique was the current New Order record - and the utter perfection of those two releases actually spoiled me a little bit when it came to checking out previous NO LPs - I have learned to get along with them since but for a long time I was absolutely convinced that New Order were the best singles band of all time but with a v.spotty back catalogue

Dorothy Berry - Ain't That Love
Crampton Sisters - Hey Boy
The Orlons - Everything

I made myself four 90 minute girl group mixes in the late 80s, almost all from vinyl. Out of maybe 120 songs, there's only 5 I haven't found on CD--the 3 listed above, plus The Crystals - In the Morning (probably just a post-Spector La La Brooks) and Big Maybelle - Bad Trouble.

Like the Crystals track, the Orlons' is probably a late career single on a new label, because there are several legit Orlons comps out there, and Everything isn't on them.

Thanks!

Any good song I hear on a compilation will probably eventually get me interested in hearing the original albums. An unfortunate side effect of listening to greatest hits is burning out on the compiled songs, so that by the time you hear the source albums you're almost tired of the songs that brought you there in the first place.
For instance, I got Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits in 1996, and only heard his early 70s records recently. In that case, the hits tend to be better than the deep tracks, but it still makes for a lopsided listening experience.

for a long time I was absolutely convinced that New Order were the best singles band of all time but with a v.spotty back catalogue

You were...not wrong.

Louder than Bombs and Substance were near definitive releases for me. Pretty sure I didn't know Bombs was a compilation until quite a bit later. To this day I find some album transitions jarring over the comp sequencing.

To this day I find some album transitions jarring over the comp sequencing.

I feel this way about Gang of Four. The first thing I heard was A Brief History of the 20th Century, and I am forever disappointed that Entertainment! doesn't start with "At Home He's a Tourist."

i have TONS of these from my teenage years. Off the top of my head ---

Billy Joel - Greatest Hits I & II
Bob Dylan - Greatest Hits
The Beatles - Red Album
The Smiths - Louder than Bombs (one of the first 2 or 3 CDs I ever bought)
Ramones - Ramones Mania
R.E.M. - Dead Letter Office (I was already into the later stuff but I tested the waters of their mysterious, college-rock past with this)
Led Zeppelin - several random discs of the 1990s box set (which fell out of the side of a convertible peeling out of my high school's dirt parking lot as i was getting in my friend's car. I MAY have already acquired Zoso at this point, I'm not sure, but if so it was pretty close to the same time.)

A rare side case: compilations that halted you from investigating further, but where you still eventually got into the band despite them. For example, the Simon & Garfunkel one with the mustache, where half the cuts are live versions, was a dead end... but like six years later I got all of their actual albums in a pretty short period.

also definitely know the feeling Halfway describes, where i feel i can never love the album as much as it fully deserves because I know some of the best songs too well --- and in this separate context that almost makes me not "count" the songs towards the album.

I searched out and paid what it cost to get that Tony Joe White Monument box set after getting into The Best of Tony Joe White CD.

Ended up getting all of them, but I probably have listened to "the Story of the Clash" and "Clash on Broadway" over all as much as any of their regular records.

Same thing with that Police box set. I have had that thing forever, so even if I want to check out one of their earlier albums, that's what I would pull it off.

The Yardbirds and the Small Faces - I really know them by compilations mostly as their catalog came out really weird in the CD age.

The Kink Kronikles was a definite starting point.

I had the Red and Blue Beatles records around the house. I got them at rummage sale when I was a kid.

1967-1970 is my unhip favourite Beatles album, it must have come into the house when I was a little kid. On the other hand, Best of the Bee Gees (1969) and The Hollies' Greatest Hits (1973) don't showcase the best songs by those groups in that era, and kept me from both their catalogues for awhile.

One of the first CD box sets actually my brother got, but I played like it was my own, was Frank Sinatra's Capitol Years. I soon went out and bought In the Wee Small Hours and eventually just about every one of his Capitol albums. There's a reason everybody says those songs really need to be heard in the context of the original albums.

Cocteau Twins Pink Opaque was their first record released in the US. Once that got me hooked I found a store that carried 4AD imports and scooped up all the Cocteaus' early LPs. I still like Pink Opaque best.

The same import/reissue circumstances dictated my entree to a few others who come to mind:
- The Go-Betweens 1978-90, before their first three or four albums got a US release.
- Scott Walker It's Raining Today comp before his 60s albums got reissued.
- Os Mutantes Everything Is Possible on Luaka Bop.