Whose Greatest Hits Would You Like To See?

Also, DESTINY'S CHILD... please!

And DMX can't carry a whole album to save his life, but there's so many great singles waiting to be compiled.

iTunes here i come.

Eminem can't be far off now he's 'retired' surely?

[insert name of artist you can't stand], posthumously, ASAP.

on vinyl - Columbia Records 450349 2

Side A
Who Can It Be Now?
It's A Mistake
Underground
Shintaro
Everything I Need

Side B
Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive
Be Good Johnny
Overkill
Down Under
The Longest Night

Google may prove me wrong

OTM

these artists have had miinimal success but deserve better since their last greatest hits.

erasure ( after pop )
bryan adams (after so far , so good )
bon jovi ( after crossroads )
whitney houston
prince
duran duran

economics of greatest hits put me on to something I think about occasionally, that there are certain people who I will never buy one of their records but I like enough of their singles that I really would enjoy owning a greatest hits package if the art was cool, etc.

Vampire Weekend would fit the bill. They've been a tough band for me to really like, and I haven't been able to enjoy any of their albums as a whole, but I tried putting the singles together and came up with a "Greatest Hits" I'd actually enjoy. (All from the XL label. I have no use for their last one.)

1. Obvious Bicycle
2. White Sky
3. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
4. Unbelievers
5. A-Punk
6. Giving Up The Gun
7. Diane Young
8. Cousins
9. Oxford Comma
10. Holiday
11. Step
12. Run
13. Hannah Hunt
14. Mansard Roof
15. Ya Hey
16. The Kids Don't Stand A Chance

For the cover, I'd take the front of a beat-up blue & white Volkswagen van and use that. (The "VW" logo would be prominent and dead center.) It's not the image they project as a band, but that's more than fine by me.

I did a 20-track VW playlist on Spotify drawing on all four lps for friend before we saw them live in '19.

Oxford Comma
White Sky
Unbelievers
Sympathy
Campus
Horchata
Diane Young
Sunflower
A-Punk
California English
Step
This Life
One (Blake's Got A New Face)
Taxi Cab
Finger Back
We Belong Together
The Kids Don't Stand A Chance
I Think Ur A Contra
Hannah Hunt
Harmony Hall

As you see, I stuck to an "Album 1, 2, 3, 4, repeat" template, not allowing for strays like "Ottoman", "Ladies of Cambridge", or the "I'm Goin' Down" cover (a highlight of that show BTW) even though this set came in at only 69 (nice) minutes.

"Album 1, 2, 3, 4, repeat"

Hah, nice! I don't recall laboring too much over the track order, but I simply went for flow - anything to make the whole thing sound like an organic album in itself - as well as anything that seemed obvious conceptually. (For example, from a narrative perspective, "Hannah Hunt" could be a follow-up to "Run.") The first and last cuts were the opener and closer for their respective albums, so repeating those placements seemed natural.

I remember "Horchata," it was the advance single for Contra and honestly I think it's a horrible track that encapsulates that band at its worst. No way is it a "great" hit, it's the one single I left off my compilation. The Contra album's the weakest of the original three, but even there the song stood out for the worst reasons.

hashim, spyder d, cutmaster dc

I love Modern Vampires all the way through, but I get the case for VW. Gotta have Harmony Hall though.... I couldn't get into that album but that song is very very earwormy and is everywhere, so a lot of the value of the GH is that you could get the song and write off the rest of the record.

Contra is one of my favorite albums. I haven't played "Horchata" since a horrorstruck afternoon in December '09.

December '09: Perfect time to look psychotic in balaclava.

Another reason for a VW comp (but a less important one in these streaming times) is collecting up non-LP single sides: in addition to those I mentioned upthread, I just noticed on Spotify a couple new to me Contra-era tracks, "Jonathan Low" and "Giant", plus there's the Ezra-featuring "New Dorp. New York" by SBTRKT, which VW has played live.

I have to admit I really like "Horchata" because the chorus sounds like it's trying to sum up the last page of Kim. I would probably have "Diplomat's Son" somewhere on my list as well.

I can't get over the way "We Belong Together" sounds like it's trying to be two different John Prine songs at once.

"Diplomat's Son" is the best song Koenig-Rostam ever wrote and arranged.

The first and last cuts were the opener and closer for their respective albums, so repeating those placements seemed natural.

I believe this is a no-no for a Greatest Hits! Gotta recontextualize… ;)

"Diplomat's Son" is the best song Koenig-Rostam ever wrote and arranged.

Agree.

I've probably said this before, but that's also one of those songs that has a very strong place-association for me. I listened to Contra a lot in my car during one of my first winters in Alaska, and the opening of that song always brings up a vivid sense-impression of echoing darkness and streetlights shining on icy roads.

I can't think of many songs that capture the sense of hungover dislocation after an unintended hookup

Yeah, it's so well done and so unexpected for VW. I don't really think of their songs as having a narrative arc, usually, but the way that song slowly unfolds what it's about, the circling around and around and getting closer with each chorus, is great storytelling imo.

kinda want a Metallica greatest hits as it'd be A) pointless at this point, and B) to watch fans destroy each other over what should be included/not included.

course that depends if we're talking "hits" versus "our best songs" in their case.

AC/DC would be a fun one only to have all of their greats in one place, though I could easily just make a playlist of my own tbh.

xp previous posts, what I do like about "Horchata" is supposedly how Koenig would sing that out loud while prepping his classroom every morning during the short time he was an inner city 8th grade teacher. Something about that cracks me up.

Makes sense, it seems designed to be a quick emergency injection of engagement with the world.

In the early '10s I'd piss off a buddy and fellow fan by substituting similar words: "In the summer/eating burrata" or "eating frittata"

LMAO, that needs to be a commercial jingle for Le Pain Quotidien.

I've probably said this before, but that's also one of those songs that has a very strong place-association for me. I listened to Contra a lot in my car during one of my first winters in Alaska, and the opening of that song always brings up a vivid sense-impression of echoing darkness and streetlights shining on icy roads.

― Lily Dale

I think this is what can be called a 'post very much in character'.

Fair point, as I was writing it I had a sense of déjà vu, like, "have I written this before or has my ilm posting just reached the stage of self-parody?"