Putting together my previous post on Masterpieces brought me to this, in some ways the very opposite. Some acts created something magnificent once in their career, they have a masterpiece but not that much else (let us say The Stone Roses), while some acts have no one outstanding work, but a phenomenal body. I disqualified Greatest Hits collections from being masterpieces, but some of them sound like it - All Killer No Filler.
A Greatest Hits is slightly different from a Best Of. There's an extra level to it. It's not just having a great body of work over the course of a career (let us say Leonard Cohen), it's also having a degree of success and being sufficiently in tune with your own work and fans to know what the best songs to release as singles are. It's also being a band that has singles, has hits, full stop, an act that has some degree of "pop" to them.
The ideal purpose of a Greatest Hits, I suppose, is to remind people who weren't huge fans of a band that, actually, they've got quite a few really good songs spread out down the years. There were, I think, three very notable Greatest Hits collections by bands in my era, albums which were surprising crossover successes and took the band to an extra level in people's consciousness - The Beautiful South, The Lightning Seeds and James. Bands born for the Greatest Hits Collections, poppy enough to collect several Top 20 singles, not despised but not overly acclaimed, without a particular album to be an albatross round their neck. The Greatest Hits was the very best they could offer, you'd hear it in a car and go "hmm, this band have a surprising number of songs I know and don't mind ..." or words to that effect.
I suppose a great Greatest Hits has to be the best a band can offer - so, to take the most obvious example, I wouldn't put The Beatles' Greatest Hits (I'll be flitting very loosely between real compilations and imaginary ones, by the way, I know there have been countless Beatles compilations) in the list, because somehow, their parade of Number 1s, their massive hits, that's nowhere near the best the band has to offer, despite being some of the finest songs ever, it doesn't come close to telling the whole story.
With the Rolling Stones, I think they're much closer to a great "singles band" - for me, most of their greatest songs were the hits. To take another of the great 60s bands, the Kinks, I'm not sure they quite qualify - I owned the Kinks' Greatest Hits so am well qualified to pass comment. There are, as the years progress, a surprising number of dodgy ones. Quality control is not as high as one would hope.
My favourite Greatest Hits is by The Jam. It's probably the single most influential album of my life and, though their albums are good and there are excellent album tracks, the singles are perfectly ordered, telling a coherent story, growing in stature through their brief career. There are the perfect number as well (a perfect Greatest Hits should be between 15 and 24 songs). There was the perfect trajectory of chart success as well. I'll see if I can remember (the chart position was printed in the sleeve notes).
40 (In the City), 12, 36, 20, 25, 15, 17, 15, 3, 1, 1, 4, 4, 1, 2, 1 (Beat Surrender) - build, build, build, explode, hold it, end it when you're on top.
So, here are some great Greatest Hits artists, acts you can spend a very enjoyable hour with even if you don't want to spend much more ...
There could be several more, most of them are pretty obvious, nice to pick out the surprising ones ...
- The Jam
- James
- The Beautiful South
- Ash
- Queen
- Super Furry Animals
- Wham!
- ABBA
- A-ha
- Beyonce
- Diana Ross and the Supremes
- The Police
- Dusty Springfield
- Bob Marley
- Blondie
- Madonna
- Billy Joel
- Lionel Richie
- Girls Aloud
- Bon Jovi
- Eminem
- Aretha Franklin
- Rolling Stones
- Madness
- ELO
- Isley Brothers
- Elton John
- Iron Maiden
- Sheryl Crow
- The Pretenders
- Supergrass
- Bee Gees
- Kool and the Gang
- Bill Withers
- Foo Fighters
- Kings of Leon
- The Cure
- Whitney Houston
- The Temptations
- Bread
- Slade
- Eurythmics
- Glen Campbell
- Elvis Presley
- Lightning Seeds
- Erasure
- Pet Shop Boys
- Creedence Clearwater Revival
- The Who
- Inspiral Carpets
- Kylie Minogue
Anyone else you can think of?
I know the name alone is enough to make you shiver, but Duran Duran, man.
ReplyDeleteAlso Prefab Sprout, Deacon Blue, Garbage, Crowded House, INXS, Squeeze (although I'll amdit that one fades by the bitter end). I'm getting dangerously bland in my tastes.
If we push into the new Millennium, I reckon Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs and Maximo Park could each throw together a belting GH album.
They're all reasonable suggestions. I obviously couldn't have Duran Duran, though they do fit the criteria perfectly. Crowded House i thought were too defined by one great album but i did almost include them on my list, Prefab Sprout didn't have enough hits, and are almost too classy, Squeeze are a pretty good one but do they have enough classics? Maybe. Garbage ... hmm, i think they tailed off even if you like them, after first two albums - you mention Deacon Blue regularly on this blog, i like it, it shows pluck! Yes of the last three, except the hits stopped coming all too quickly as is the way with modern music. I think "Greatest Hits" suits the somewhat bland bands we actually rather like
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