The most annoying "Best of", "Greatest Hits" Compilations (key hits missing, live tracks, etc.)*

The first Gloria Estefan Greatest Hits back in the 90s does include Miami Sound Machine hits, but does not include Bad Boy.

 

Your post sounded like it was what you would want. Sorry.

You're right, though. Labels and artists feel that including everything would cannibalize album sales.

Many artists feel that greatest hits and Best ofs signal the end of a career. I think that is why many of them like to add newly recorded songs. Not only do they provide potential sales, it lets the public know that they aren't finished yet.

A couple of days ago, I listened to Earth, Wind & Fire's Best of from 1978, and was again annoyed that they included "Love Music". It was one of those newly recorded songs specifically for the comp, but went nowhere. It was also a bad, uninspired song. It irks me when I know that they could have included at least one other hit single like "Mighty Mighty", "Evil", "Head To The Sky", "Devotion", or even "On Your Face" They did include some of those on a volume II, but it didn't sell very well, nor did it get the exposure that the first one did. It was also released in 1988, and still excluded other hit singles.

If I had compiled that first best of set, I would have done something like this:

1) Got To Get You Into My Life
2) Fantasy (album version)
3) Can't Hide Love (single edit)
4) Sing A Song
5) Mighty Mighty
6) That's The Way Of The World (album version)
7) September
8) Shining Star
9) Devotion
10) Getaway

Of course, you could take this in all kinds of directions.

 

i figured it was some confusion. i was saying it made no sense for seger to leave some off since the albums they are on are OOP so you can't buy them if you wanted to

 

Well, looks like you were right all along!

 

Earlier today, I decided to pull up The "Best Of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol. II", and realized that whomever put it together forgot that "Fantasy" was on volume one and put it on again! If you play the albums back-to-back, you get a double shot of "Fantasy", like I didn't hear the damn song enough back in the 70s!

 

And they never tell us why something was pulled. We could speculate all day long:

Barry Gibb got A Change Of Wind and doesn't like it/was unauthorized
Someone wants to add new tracks
Too Much Heaven Bee Gee product already out there
Mastering issues
It's just your Jive Talkin' that takes it away
Someone doesn't like that it's vinyl-only
There are legal disputes with some of the songs
Legal hasn't cleared the rights to release the compilation
What'cha doin in your bedroom slippers? You Should Be Dancing!

The list could be long. It's only Words.

 

The fact that it contains so many edited versions is what ruins that particular comp for me.

 

Funny thing, I was kind of stoked when I realized it had things like the single versions of Along Comes a Woman and Dialogue, and various edited versions. Just to have something different, kind of makes it special.
I really dig the booklet too. I appreciate how it's loaded with details about each track, the band's discography, etc. Overall a really nice set, sounds great.

 

This was slated as both CD and 2-LP releases. My guess is that Barry was against yet another compilation, he was against any more being issued at least going by what he said to us fans at soundchecks. Lets face it, the tracklist didn't exactly break new ground from what WMG had released over the past few years and most fans had had enough of those already.

 

It made no sense at all to release it on CD, but I thought a vinyl issue would have. None of the previous comps after Greatest have been released on vinyl, except The Record in another country. I think younger people just buying vinyl would pick it up, and even though I have everything by them I even had preordered it as the sequencing of the tracks, and the tracklist, were excellent.

 

The Rolling Stones' Jump Back collection has an odd tracklist. It's missing "One Hit To The Body", which maybe wasn't a huge hit, but I still think fits the criteria of "best of 71-93". A few other choices that make me scratch my head ("Mixed Emotions" over "Rock And A Hard Place"? Er, wait, that might actually be on there. Never mind)

I was also baffled that Best Of Bowie omitted, among other tracks, "Starman", "The Man Who Sold The Worls", and I believe "Diamond Dogs". The 2CD compilation, I think it was called Nothing Has Changed (?) has a much better tracklist.

 

That was a 5-track promotional maxi-single in the UK as I recall. Not the entire set.

 

Ahh..didnt know that. Just saw it on discogs.

 

"Mixed Emotions": #5 in the US
"Rock and a Hard Place": #23 in the US

So if a hits album only could pick one, "Mixed Emotions" seems like the obvious choice!

 

I have "Mixed Emotions" about their selections.

 

Totally agree. When I saw the absence of those two songs on the disc, my first thought was that Rhino must have been trying to highlight The Monkees' "Classic" period (meaning their 60's songs).

 

I wonder what happened to the original Monkees greatest hits album, 1986's Then and Now. . . The Best of the Monkees, that had been released on Arista Records?

~Ben

 

That indeed was their intent.

 

That's the set I got. I think it's the best compilation made of the Monkees. I also think it's the one that should still be available.

 

"Gypsy Man" doesn't bother me all that much (I don't recall hearing it on the radio), but "The World is a Ghetto" is a huge omission. This is why I replaced Best with Grooves & Messages, whose first disc has all the War I need.

 

I've always wanted a Blue Oyster Cult best of collection on vinyl, unless there's one out there I haven't heard of.

 

"Gypsy Man" was a big hit, reaching #8 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles in 1973. Your local radio just may not have played it. Well, mine didn't either, but I heard it a lot on Soul Train, so it figures into my history. Radio did play most of their other hits up through 1976 bigtime. The only other one I never heard on the radio was "Slippin' Into Darkness", but that was probably played a lot on Black/urban radio, which I didn't have access to in 1973.

 

Yeah, it's funny what gets played where. I definitely recall hearing "Slippin' Into Darkness" on the radio, though.

The other possibility with me is I did hear "Gypsy Man" on the radio and it just didn't make an impression on me. I'm pretty certain that also happened with The Pointer Sisters' early period. I don't recall songs like "Yes We Can Can" at all, even though that was a sizable hit and I listened to the radio all the time.

 

I heard "Yes We Can Can" all over radio back then! I got sick of hearing it after a while. It was huge! I didn't hear "How Long (Bet'cha Gotta Chick On the Side)" anywhere, but we had a smoke shop that also sold magazines, books, and was a dumping place for rackjobbers who had overstock and cutouts, and used jukebox 45s. They sold them for ten cents each. Every week, or so, i'd go in and check out the big bin of 45s. Of course, at my young age, I didn't know what all that music was, so I tended to pick out records by artists I knew about. back then, if I had known all the music I know today, I would have spent every last dime of my allowance and school lunch money on those records.

I used to see lots of Billy "Crash" Craddock 45s in there, for some reason. Tons of "Third-Rate Romance" copies. I figured he was country so I never bothered. But, whenever I saw a soul title, I picked it up, and that's how I got that Pointer Sisters record. I bought it along with some Isaac Hayes, Natalie Cole, Willie Hutch (i'm talking late 1975 here), without ever having first heard a note. I never did see much pop/rock in there.

Speaking of Isaac Hayes, I have rarely, if ever see the top 10 soul hit "Chocalate Chip" on a compilation.

 

all the major domestic Tom Petty compilations omit A Face in the Crowd.