Greatest Hits?!?!?
I just noticed today that Rhapsody has added Better Than Ezra's Greatest Hits. Greatest hits? Should that really be plural? I remember "Good" being a decent song at a time when most things on the radio were decent. I vaguely remember that they had another single (from the next album?) that charted, but didn't get that much play. Maybe I'm being too harsh then. Maybe their Greatest Hits is a short EP. Nope. I went back to check and there's 16 tracks on it. I guess their standard for "great" is just pretty low. And their standard for "hit" must be as well. Maybe they think "hit" actually means "released" or maybe only "recorded." I'd suggest that it's a marketing ploy, but who would buy it? Please tell me no one would buy it.
This reminds of reading that Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a greatest hits album back in 1994 (Bang!...The Greatest Hits of Frankie Goes to Hollywood). I remember thinking to myself at the time that it must be a single with "Relax" on one side and "Two Tribes" on the other. Nope, it was 13 tracks (including a Gerry and the Pacemakers cover, no less). I know they didn't have 13 hits! They had two albums, Welcome to the Pleasuredome (16 tracks) and Liverpool (8 tracks), with a grand total of 24 tracks. If 13 were hits, why did they stop after only two albums? The odds aren't that good for U2. They weren't even that good for the Beatles!
Those are just two examples, 11 years apart, but this happens all the time. A band has a big hit and maybe a few minor hits in the years that follow and then all of the sudden there's a Greatest Hits album full of songs that are neither great nor hits. Who buys this? Is it an attempt to sell to people who remember the song and can't remember what album it was on? A quick browse at allmusic.com and a trip to the used bin of the local record store would save them some money. And it would keep a little money out of the pockets of labels and bands who want to repackage and resell stuff that wasn't all that good the first time around.
This reminds of reading that Frankie Goes to Hollywood released a greatest hits album back in 1994 (Bang!...The Greatest Hits of Frankie Goes to Hollywood). I remember thinking to myself at the time that it must be a single with "Relax" on one side and "Two Tribes" on the other. Nope, it was 13 tracks (including a Gerry and the Pacemakers cover, no less). I know they didn't have 13 hits! They had two albums, Welcome to the Pleasuredome (16 tracks) and Liverpool (8 tracks), with a grand total of 24 tracks. If 13 were hits, why did they stop after only two albums? The odds aren't that good for U2. They weren't even that good for the Beatles!
Those are just two examples, 11 years apart, but this happens all the time. A band has a big hit and maybe a few minor hits in the years that follow and then all of the sudden there's a Greatest Hits album full of songs that are neither great nor hits. Who buys this? Is it an attempt to sell to people who remember the song and can't remember what album it was on? A quick browse at allmusic.com and a trip to the used bin of the local record store would save them some money. And it would keep a little money out of the pockets of labels and bands who want to repackage and resell stuff that wasn't all that good the first time around.
posted by bob_vinyl at 3:39 PM
5 Comments:
WOOO! Slam!
Don't forget that A Flock of Seagulls put out a greatest hits album after only 2 albums! Yeesh.
I have to agree with you on this. I have several Greatest Hits albums(Tom Petty, Aerosmith, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Hall & Oates (guilty pleasure))that I love to listen to, but at least these artists have more than one album.
If you buy any one greatest hits album, make it Elvis' Greatest Shit. A truly inspired collection.
The band is Europe, and the album is SUPER HITS. It seems so obvious!
This stellar release includes all of your hard-rockin' Europe faves, like "Sign of the Times" (not to be confused with the crappy song by that Prince guy), "Let the Good Times Rock" (not to be confused with the crappy song by that Ric Ocasek guy), and "Halfway to Heaven" (not to be confused with the crappy song by that Led Zeppelin guy).
Unfortunately, it seems there is some dissent over on amazon.com. In one corner, we have this gentleman:
"obviously there are many other incredible songs of this band, but the ones in this cd are surely known by many people..."
But in a resounding vote against SUPER HITS, we hear this:
"if you're going to buy just one EUROPE compilation, I would recommend that you buy "1982-1992" instead"
Of course, that's a ridiculous statement. Who could buy just one Europe complilation? Not me, my friends... not me.
A lot of greatest hits albums seem to be the choice of the record label not the band. Bands like Aerosmith, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath all had greatest hits released at times where the bands future was in question. This makes me think they had a contract obligation so the label released a greatest hits to cash in while the band had some staying power. I think a number of live albums have been just for contract obligations as well rather than being the band's choice. Last Year Geffen released Guns and Roses greatest hits even though Axl Rose took them to court to try to stop them because he had no say in the selection of the songs. The rep from Geffen said they just wanted to get back some of the money they had sunk into the Chineese Democracy project. Geffen won and released the album. Sorry if I strayed too far from the original topic.
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