Spin-off thread: The most pointless Greatest Hits albums.

[Towelie]

I always thought the very notion of a GNR Greatest Hits was ludicrous. Discounting Chinese, the original band only made three proper albums of original material (Lies is an EP, TSI is a covers album). Why would anyone shell out £10.99 for a GNR Greatest Hits when you only need to own AFD and the UYI albums and you have pretty much their entire back catalogue (or at least the stuff that's worth owning)??

Not to mention the fact that there's a whopping five cover versions out of the fourteen tracks on the album.

Is there anybody who has put out a more pointless Greatest Hits album than GNR??

[alfierose]

I would assume it's aimed at people who have no or little knowledge of the bands history or output and therefore buy it in the same way they might buy Queen's greatest hits. There are loads of bands I recognise by name or by one or two songs that I've never looked into the back catalogue of.

I imagine it's made a lot of profit so on that basis it's not pointless - only for the fans who own everything else.

[kogun]

The 9 Most Unnecessary Greatest Hits Albums of All Time : http://www.cracked.com/article_15714_the-9-most-unnecessary-greatest-hits-albums-all-time.html

[RussTCB]

I worked at a record store years ago and we used to carry a ton of imports from all over the world. One of us noticed a completely pointless Greatest Hits album once and it became kind of a game to see who could find the worst offender. Many on the list above were pointed out but I co-worker won the game once and for all time when he found a 2-CD set called "The Ultimare Paula Abdul Collection"

TWO CDs?!?!?!

[Silent Jay]

That pointless Greatest Hits was a huge hit. It sold like 5 more than chinese. The label was right, and did a smart move there.

On topic, AC/DC Iron Man 2.

Edited November 15, 2015 by Silent Jay

[dalsh327]

It's not narrowed down to one artist because some of them have valid reasons for reissues, but Bruce Willis having 4 "collections" is kind of ridiculous. Labels do it to bring some money in.

I like it when the artist does the song selection but then it's not a hits collection anymore, it's more "songbook". If GNR handpicked songs for a collection, they might not put all the hits on there, but it would be interesting to see what Axl, Slash and Duff would pick and the reasons behind it, wouldn't it?

KISS - way too many greatest hits (WTF with Strutter 78 on Double Platinum and Eric Carr singing Beth). The Doors, Queen and Hendrix...just way too much.

Elvis' estate went into greatest hits overkill instead of doing 50s,60s,70s singles collections and a big box set with singles and b-sides, and just reissued the albums.

Re-recorded greatest hits, esp. the ones where an oldies band re-recorded them for bargain bin collections. They sound awful, sometimes with a fucking drum machine, so it has that karaoke quality to it.

When they tack on live versions, unless it's something like "Freebird", "Midnight Rambler" or "Rock and Roll All Night" where the live version is stronger than the album. Van Halen's 2 disc collection - they had the Roth versions in the vault but they decided to put Hagar's versions of Jump and the other 2 at the end. Even Greatest Hits 1 with the reunion songs, they're just not that good to have on a hits album, when they had plenty of other songs to go on there.

I can't think of which ones right now, but there were also a few "remix" compilations that were pretty bad.

[-W.A.R-]

yeah the GNR one is pretty bad no Estranged or Coma which are probably the 2 best songs they ever made

[DieselDaisy]

Re-recorded greatest hits, esp. the ones where an oldies band re-recorded them for bargain bin collections. They sound awful, sometimes with a fucking drum machine, so it has that karaoke quality to it.

Don't remind me. I have a Johnny Cash album that matches that description. It is usually when an artist changes label, leaving the master tapes at the former label.

[dalsh327]

I actually would want to see Welcome to the Videos remastered for HD and in 5.1, add commentary from band members to it, especially after I heard the Noel Gallagher one for the Oasis videos. Doubt they'll do this but I'd love to see it out there because it's band sanctioned, because what's out there was definitely not a band sanctioned DVD, they probably would have put Making ******* Videos on it. The Greatest Hits would have been a good companion to it but they should have just stuck to singles mixes and put less on than try to pad it with album cuts that were never singles,and add some live and unreleased onto it (kind of like the Tool Salival box).

The fans want something comprehensive and complete. Sometimes a hits collection needs updating, or there were missing master tapes, and the masters were found, so there's definitely reason to release those...but to package a new greatest hits album? I really don't know if they really need to do that, unless it's a vinyl era hits collection where they only had 20-25 minutes a side.

[Strange Broue]

Guns N' Roses - Greatest Hits

[Stress Fracture]

At least Guns N' Roses only have one greatest hits. (For now, anyway...)

Some acts end up with more compilations than albums.

[DieselDaisy]

When I was a kid I used to buy cassettes of Elvis hits albums just to get that one song I did not possess. It was a nightmare.

Not including rarities compilations and quasi-hits sets like the London Years, the Stones have had eighteen hits sets!

Edited November 15, 2015 by DieselDaisy

[sturginho]

When I was a kid I used to buy cassettes of Elvis hits albums just to get that one song I did not possess. It was a nightmare.

Not including rarities compilations and quasi-hits sets like the London Years, the Stones have had eighteen hits sets!

The very best of...

The very very best of...

The very very very best of...

and etc.

[DieselDaisy]

In the Stones' case, expect a lot of puns on the noun/adjective 'stone' and other geological related tom-foolery: Stone Age; Milestones; Rock n' Rolling Stones; Get Stoned; No Stone Unturned (in fairness, this is a rarities collection); Hot Rocks; Solid Rock. And then there is the oddly titled Grrr (your guess is as good as mine?)

Edited November 16, 2015 by DieselDaisy

[wasted]

Epic and Other Hits -Faith No More

They already released 2 Gh packages before this. And 3 more packages after it. But Epic... Didnt even have hits on it, theres random random tracks on it like Arabian disco and Zombie eaters.

[DieselDaisy]

Sex Pistols hits albums. They only had one album haha.

[James Bond]

Every KISS greatest hits album. They must have more "greatest hits" and "best of" than any other band. You're better off just getting the Alive albums if you want a general overview of the band. Those are the definitive versions of most of their songs anyways.

yeah the GNR one is pretty bad no Estranged or Coma which are probably the 2 best songs they ever made

But that's the difference between a "best of" and a "greatest hits" package - the latter will generally only include songs that were significant hits for the band. Estranged and Coma were not despite being fan favourites and the former being released as a single.

[DieselDaisy]

Thirteen Kiss hits sets apparently. Queen have fourteen. ABBA have about one hundred. Elvis and Chuck, two thousand.

[Towelie]

MJ has:

Michael Jackson Anthology

HIStory Past Present & Future Book I

Greatest Hits Vol 1

Number Ones

The Essential MJ

The Ultimate Collection

King of Pop

This Is It

And that's not including his Motown stuff and material with The Jackson 5 and The Jacksons.

[bacardimayne]

[Zeppelin]

But that's a pretty good collection for getting into DT. At least it admits that Pull Me Under was their only "hit" song.

[SOH]

It's not narrowed down to one artist because some of them have valid reasons for reissues, but Bruce Willis having 4 "collections" is kind of ridiculous. Labels do it to bring some money in.

I like it when the artist does the song selection but then it's not a hits collection anymore, it's more "songbook". If GNR handpicked songs for a collection, they might not put all the hits on there, but it would be interesting to see what Axl, Slash and Duff would pick and the reasons behind it, wouldn't it?

KISS - way too many greatest hits (WTF with Strutter 78 on Double Platinum and Eric Carr singing Beth). The Doors, Queen and Hendrix...just way too much.

Elvis' estate went into greatest hits overkill instead of doing 50s,60s,70s singles collections and a big box set with singles and b-sides, and just reissued the albums.

Re-recorded greatest hits, esp. the ones where an oldies band re-recorded them for bargain bin collections. They sound awful, sometimes with a fucking drum machine, so it has that karaoke quality to it.

When they tack on live versions, unless it's something like "Freebird", "Midnight Rambler" or "Rock and Roll All Night" where the live version is stronger than the album. Van Halen's 2 disc collection - they had the Roth versions in the vault but they decided to put Hagar's versions of Jump and the other 2 at the end. Even Greatest Hits 1 with the reunion songs, they're just not that good to have on a hits album, when they had plenty of other songs to go on there.

I can't think of which ones right now, but there were also a few "remix" compilations that were pretty bad.

Van Halen's mishandling of this is a great example. Calling the first one "Best Of Volume 1" implies that a volume 2 was coming, and they had more than enough songs to do it...but instead they released "Best Of Both Worlds", which was mostly THE SAME SONGS FROM VOLUME 1, along with a bunch of new Hagar crap. "Me Wise Magic" was a number one hit so technically it did belong on the first one, haha.

[luciusfunk]

Thirteen Kiss hits sets apparently. Queen have fourteen. ABBA have about one hundred. Elvis and Chuck, two thousand.

Queen have 14 compilations, not necessarily greatest hits or endorsed by the band. Greatest Hits I, II, III, Absolute Greatest are their only greatest hits that the band released.

Hollywood released Greatest Hits and Classic Queen in 1992 after taking over US releases for Queen. Queen Rocks was a compilation of their more rock oriented songs.

Stone Cold Classics, A-Z, and Icon were label releases.

Then you have the three Deep Cuts and Queen Forever which focused more on ballads.

Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits II are really the only ones that matter.

Edited November 17, 2015 by luciusfunk

[DieselDaisy]

Thirteen Kiss hits sets apparently. Queen have fourteen. ABBA have about one hundred. Elvis and Chuck, two thousand.

Queen have 14 compilations, not necessarily greatest hits or endorsed by the band. Greatest Hits I, II, III, Absolute Greatest are their only greatest hits that the band released.

Hollywood released Greatest Hits and Classic Queen in 1992 after taking over US releases for Queen. Queen Rocks was a compilation of their more rock oriented songs.

Stone Cold Classics, A-Z, and Icon were label releases.

Then you have the three Deep Cuts and Queen Forever which focused more on ballads.

Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits II are really the only ones that matter.

Taylor was slagging off Queen Forever in some interview, saying ''he didn't think they needed another hits set''. Also, the two of them were disgruntled that the company used the William Orbit mix of that Jackson song, which is quite frankly hideous (the mix, not the song), over May's own.

Nobody is denying that there is usually a hell of a lot of label involvement in these things, a classic example being Guns N' Roses's. I remember a time Ozzy was on an US chat show and the host produced his latest release, a hits album, and Ozzy basically said he had nothing to do with the thing, and that it was a 'load of shit'. Also, with the Stones, most of them releases are ABKCO releases and consequentially out of the band's control.

[luciusfunk]

That William Orbit mix was terrible. The demo I have sounds better.