Your Favorite Greatest Hits Compilations by any Artist

[goo-goo]

What are your favorite Greatest Hit compilations by any artist?

I was listening to Iron Maiden's Best of the Beast compilation...killer tracklist. It's a great CD to get the blood flowing in the morning.

[erwinrafael]

This is not really a greatest hits compilation, but the first thing that comes to mind is Queen Rocks (1997).

[The Walrus]

This one. Not any of their other crap compilations or studio albums, this is all the Crue you need. Although they should've taken out Enslaved, Glitter, or Afraid and replaced it with Too Young To Fall In Love, but what do I know...

[Cool Chris]

Ayreon's Timeline. A great release especially considering it has to pull from not only multiple double-albums but ones with an all-encompassing story.

[bosk1]

This one. Not any of their other crap compilations or studio albums, this is all the Crue you need. Although they should've taken out Enslaved, Glitter, or Afraid and replaced it with Too Young To Fall In Love, but what do I know...

Well, I don't know the songs you mentioned.  But any Crue compilation that lacks Too Young seems severely lacking to me.

Hits compilations can be difficult to get right.  The ones that are reasonably concise and not bloated inevitably leave out something critical.  The ones that do a good job of getting the main staples while throwing in those cult "essential" deep cuts and "holy grail" rarities often feel too long and bloated.  It really just depends on what you are looking for.  But I will throw a few out there that I personally really like:

Journey - Time³:  This is definitely the second category of "hits" packages.  It captures all the essentials, plus PLENTY more for the completist.  But now, in retrospect, it is admittedly incomplete in that it only captures the Perry years (and the pre-Perry years).  But really, for those looking for a Journey compilation, are you really looking for anything else?  I think this set really does a fantastic job of capturing just about everything someone looking for a Journey compilation would reasonably want.  For those wanting something more streamlined that captures basically just the mega radio hits, the single disk "Greatest Hits" is excellent. 

Queensryche - Sign of the Times:  Disk 1 is a semi-complete compilation of the "hits."  There are a few omissions here and there.  But for a single disk, this isn't bad.  Disk 2 does a good job of providing key rarities, and lots of them.

Y&T - Ultimate Collection:  If I am listening to some Y&T and want to span the discography in one sitting, I will usually go for one of their live albums.  But if I had to go for a traditional compilation, it would be this one.  They tried to hit all of the studio albums, with more emphasis on the earlier ones.  For a single disk, this isn't bad at all.  Yeah, you could get a bit more "meat" from those earlier albums by cutting the later albums altogether, like Best of '81-'85 does, for example.  But those later albums had some good tunes, and making room to at least pick one track was a good move, IMO (although they kinda cheated on Musically Incorrect).

[Cool Chris]

Hits compilations can be difficult to get right.  The ones that are reasonably concise and not bloated inevitably leave out something critical.  The ones that do a good job of getting the main staples while throwing in those cult "essential" deep cuts and "holy grail" rarities often feel too long and bloated.

Wouldn't a "hit compilation" by definition focus on "hits" and not "deep cuts?" How "essential" are those deep cuts and rarities to a "hits compilation?"

[bosk1]

Hits compilations can be difficult to get right.  The ones that are reasonably concise and not bloated inevitably leave out something critical.  The ones that do a good job of getting the main staples while throwing in those cult "essential" deep cuts and "holy grail" rarities often feel too long and bloated.

Wouldn't a "hit compilation" by definition focus on "hits" and not "deep cuts?" How "essential" are those deep cuts and rarities to a "hits compilation?"

Yes, the focus should be on "hits."  But often, a band may have a favorite that is popular or even "essential" among funs that was not a mainstream hit.  You know this, so I'm not even sure why ask. 

And while a collection of rarities isn't necessarily what the OP was after, including such things can indeed enhance a greatest hits compilation and make it a "favorite" collection.  For instance, let's say Maiden has a standard "hits" collection that has Wrathchild, Hallowed, Run To the Hills, Number of the Beast, The Trooper, and all the other "standard" big hits as Compilation A.  Then they release Compilation B, which has all the same tracks, plus Mission from 'Arry, a never-before-released song Steve and Paul worked up and recorded during basement sessions before the first album was released, and never-before-released song Steve and Bruce worked up and recorded during basement sessions before NOTB was released.  Both are "greatest hits compilations."  But given the choice, Compilation B is more likely to be my "favorite" greatest hits compilation of the two.

Really, it's not that complicated.  Not sure why you're busting chops over this.

[pg1067]

It's a bit of a perplexing question because I don't typically buy "greatest hits" packages by artists I like because they typically don't give me anything I don't already have (and, where they do add a new song or two, I generally don't like paying for an album full of stuff I already have just to get one or two new songs -- of course, digital downloading typically solves that problem).

With that said, the albums that first came to mind were Motorhead's "No Remorse" (which included some new and live material) and Sabbath's "We Sold Our Souls for Rock n Roll."

Hits compilations can be difficult to get right.  The ones that are reasonably concise and not bloated inevitably leave out something critical.  The ones that do a good job of getting the main staples while throwing in those cult "essential" deep cuts and "holy grail" rarities often feel too long and bloated.

Wouldn't a "hit compilation" by definition focus on "hits" and not "deep cuts?" How "essential" are those deep cuts and rarities to a "hits compilation?"

I guess that illustrates the difference between "greatest hits" and "best of" (and, hence, DT's "Greatest Hit (...and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs" compilation).

[The Walrus]

This one. Not any of their other crap compilations or studio albums, this is all the Crue you need. Although they should've taken out Enslaved, Glitter, or Afraid and replaced it with Too Young To Fall In Love, but what do I know...

Well, I don't know the songs you mentioned.  But any Crue compilation that lacks Too Young seems severely lacking to me.

The three I mentioned are pretty subpar Crue tracks imo. I honestly don't even like them and I've never heard anyone ever talk about them so it's weird they're included. I think Too Young is on some other compilations, strangely. It is a weird absence. If it was on there, it'd be perfect even with those other 3 oddball picks. It's the single best Crue song for my taste.

[Cool Chris]

Yes, the focus should be on "hits."  But often, a band may have a favorite that is popular or even "essential" among funs that was not a mainstream hit.  You know this, so I'm not even sure why ask. 

Not busting chops Bosk, asking a legit question. It all comes down to marketing, and who you are marketing this release to. If it is to fans, it should have material not included in other releases, since there is a good chance fans already own those albums. If it is to marginal fans, or to those who will likely only buy this one compilation, then it shouldn't include some rare track that most hardcore fans don't even own.

I am sorry to derail this. It is a good idea for discussion.

To get back on topic... I will say my friends and I played the crap out of Journey's Time³ when it came out.

The Essential Iron Maiden 2CD set compelled me to buy all of their studio albums, see them live twice, and elevate them to Cool Chris' Top Band status. If I recall, it is 2 songs from each album, usually the hits/most well known songs, with a couple live tracks. So that would be a prime example of my first example above. Introduce a newcomer to the basic hits, and let them go from there.

[Stadler]

That Queensryche CD is a good call.

I know for me, Sabbath's "We Sold Our Souls.." and Classic Yes were the gateways into those bands, two of my favorites of all time. 

I'm not the hugest Tom Petty fan, so the "Anthology" is almost the perfect record for me, in that it gives me what I want without a ton of extra "insider baseball". 

The two Bob Seger Greatest Hits are pretty much all I need from him, as well. 

I forget the name of it, but Blondie has a really good, comprehensive 2-CD hits set. 

Deepest Purple - while being a almost exclusively Mark IIa - is excellent, made even better on the 30th Anniversary edition (adding Hush and Soldier of Fortune)

One thing I don't like on Hits packages is when artists get cute, and do remixes or rerecordings.  I love Kiss, goes without saying, but they have about 1,000 hits packages and 995 of them suck.   A Kiss "hits" record with Eric Carr singing "Beth" is bullshit in my opinion. Not the song itself - that's legit - but if I buy a "Hits" record, I want the HIT. 

We should also note that there is a difference between a "hits" record and an "anthology" record.  "Hits" is the hits.  "Anthologies" tend to include the more obscure stuff, b-sides, etc.   

[Eldomm]

For me, without question, Queen's Greatest Hits.

[TAC]

Y&T - Ultimate Collection:  If I am listening to some Y&T and want to span the discography in one sitting, I will usually go for one of their live albums.  But if I had to go for a traditional compilation, it would be this one.  They tried to hit all of the studio albums, with more emphasis on the earlier ones.  For a single disk, this isn't bad at all.  Yeah, you could get a bit more "meat" from those earlier albums by cutting the later albums altogether, like Best of '81-'85 does, for example.  But those later albums had some good tunes, and making room to at least pick one track was a good move, IMO (although they kinda cheated on Musically Incorrect).

This is a great Best Of collection. They totally nailed it.

[pg1067]

I know for me, Sabbath's "We Sold Our Souls.." and Classic Yes were the gateways into those bands, two of my favorites of all time. 
 

I forgot Classic Yes and would've mentioned it if I had remembered.  For sure a "gateway" album.  The live version of Roundabout is incredible.

[masterthes]

Beatles 1's

[Kwyjibo]

I don't own or know many greatest hits albums, but Journey's Greatest Hits (1988) is one I often played. It's got all the hits and Only The Young and Ask The Lonely from various soundtracks.

[a51502112]

Nazareth-Greatest Hits