Compilations (not album boxes or complete masters sets) including entire core albums

It's Friday evening on the U.S. east coast right now. Time for a thread. Pointless? You bet. If it had a point, it wouldn't be a thread, it would be a needle. And the damage done.

Here's a place for you to name compilation albums whose constituent tracks include every track from one or more of a given artist's core albums. The tracks from the core albums need not be in the original running order; you just need to be able to piece the whole album together. (Not just most of the album, and they have to be the same recordings - no substituting single edits, pre-release rough mixes, live versions, demos, etc. Latter-day remixes are okay as long as they keep the feel of the original recordings, rather than "DJ" style remixes with editing, looping, added sounds, etc.)

To be clear - I don't mean collections in which a bunch of existing albums have been put together in a box. Those aren't compilations, they're boxes of albums.

I also don't mean "complete masters" compilations, which exist for artists such as Elvis Presley and the Hollies. If a compilation has every recording from a given artist, or from a given era of that artist's career, then of course it will have complete albums on it. Where's the fun in that?

When I say "core album," I don't mean compilations of previously released material, no matter how esteemed the reputation of a given compilation may be. For example, all 10 tracks on Blast From Your Past also appeared, later, on Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr, but that doesn't count because Blast... was a compilation rather than an album of new material.

I'm disqualifying I Broke My Heart in 17 Places: The Best of Tracey Ullman. It's an original Ullman album with bonus tracks. Back before "expanded reissues" were much of a thing, Rhino Records reissued a regular Tracey Ullman album, tacked on some additional tracks, and called it a "best of" while retaining the title and cover art.

Some examples of qualifying compilations:

Wonderous Stories: The Best of Yes. A two-CD set that includes all three tracks from Close to the Edge.

Voyage: The Very Best of Rick Wakeman. A two-CD set that includes all of Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

John Lennon, Gimme Some Truth. A four-CD box set, organized thematically. It includes every track from Plastic Ono Band and every track from Rock and Roll.

I can think of a few other examples but I didn't want to burn through all of them in the already-too-long introductory post. You're welcome.

There may not be very many compilations out there that fit all these conditions. But that's the challenge, isn't it?

 

The Rhino compilation Love Story includes all of Forever Changes.

 

The Jam
- Direction Reaction Creation

...is an anthology, that has their core 6 albums, but does NOT have those albums separated by CD - annoyingly so...

 

The Humble Pie 2 CD set "Natural Born Bugie: The Immediate Years" contains their first two albums ("As Safe as Yesterday Is" and "Town and Country"), plus other tracks.

 

David Bowie's Deram Anthology CD.
It contains his complete first album (stereo) and several tracks originally released as singles on the Deram/Decca label, plus an early version of 'Space Oddity'.

 

I believe the Essential Janis Joplin includes "Pearl" in its entirety.

 

The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson Vol. I includes all of In the Court of the Crimson King.

 

Carole King: A Natural Woman...The Ode Collection 68-76...it has Tapestry in its entirety

 

I would say all of these are "complete masters" type of compilations, intending to include everything from a certain period (recorded for one label in the latter two cases).

"Moonchild" is edited (or "abridged", as it's called in Crim-speak).

Sorry...

Love Story, as mentioned above, should be legit, it was the first one I thought of as well.

 

Yes, I hear your point, regarding The Jam anthology ....
I tried to carefully read and vet the OP's guidelines, to see if that box passed the test .

However, ironically, The Jam anthology fails as a "complete masters", if it was indeed intended as so.
IIRC, several B-sides are missing.

What does the thread master @SJB sayeth?

 

Since you asked so nicely...

It seems to me that the Jam title is somewhere between a "complete albums" collection and a "complete masters" collection - akin to Steely Dan's Citizen and Message in a Box by the Police. They don't quite have everything, but they were evidently aiming for the core catalog in one place rather than a sampler or overview. The compilations I have in mind were put together as new listening experiences rather than "collected works" that simply or mostly string existing albums together.

 

Graham Parker's Squeezing Out Sparks on Vertigo compilation
Moby Grape's self-titled on Vintage
Big Star's Third on Keep An Eye On The Sky
Beach Boys' Christmas Album on Ultimate Christmas (uh...)
10,000 Maniacs' Secrets Of The I Ching on Hope Chest (albeit remixed)

 

The Chocolate Watchband - Melts In Your Brain... Not On The Wrist!

This excellent 2005 Big Beat 2CD compilation contains nearly everything the CWB ever recorded during the 60s. Their 3 albums for Tower records plus some non LP singles as well as some unreleased material.

 

I own the separate One Way CDs for each album but the Dust "Hard Attack" CD compilation on Sony/Legacy contains both of their Kama Sutra albums on one disc in reversed order.

 

Aphrodite's Child - The Singles+

This 2003, 2 CD compilation on BR Music contains all the material for the first two Aphrodite's Child albums along with all the non LP singles, the Italian only single and 3 unreleased live tracks plus a handful of tracks from the 666 album. The only thing odd about it is that the song "Such A Funny Night" is edited 1 minute short from the album version unlike all other Aphrodite's Child CDs on other labels. For some reason all Aphrodite's Child CDs on BR Music have this edited version of "Such A Funny Night." Still a great compilation though. The long OOP 1996
The Complete Collection on Mercury records Germany has both albums as well and the unedited album version of "Such A Funny Night."

 

The "Lennon" 4-CD set also includes the entire "Plastic Ono Band" album.

I know some people here are into Brazilian music, so let me mention a compilation of the Brazilian progressive rock band Terço from the "Preferencia Nacional" series. It includes the entire "Criaturas da Noite" (1975) album, which is considered their best. All the compilations in this series are limited to 16 tracks, but the good news is that this one goes beyond the 70-minute mark because of the lengthy piece "1974".

 

The Best Of Milli Vanilli... i believe.

 

It's missing "Buried Alive in the Blues" (from which Janis herself is missing).

 

The 1994 Mercury CD compilation of the two Sir Lord Baltimore albums are contained in full but the first album (Kingdom Come) has side one and two reversed. The second album has an altered track listing as well almost like the first album but one track is out of place and is bundled together with the other songs from the album with "Where Are We Going" as the last track after the "Man From Manhattan" suite. This was done to have these albums track listings in the "original intended" order of the artist.

 

Does Carole KIng's "Ode Collection count? I think it has the entire "Tapestry" album on it, IIRC.

 

Serge Gainsbourg~ Les 100 Plus Belles Chansons is a chronological anthology which among it's 100 tracks contains all of No 4, Initials BB and Historie de Melody Nelson.

 

The Buffalo Springfield Box contains all the tracks from the first two albums TWICE!!

 

I'm not sure if this qualifies, as they are technically compilations, but includes a core album before albums were really recorded as such. Happy for the OP to clarify if this fits his criteria.

I present Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock.
It is a 12" compilation of singles, that became a core album.



It contains all the singles (and more) which were compiled on the previous 10" Shake Rattle and Roll:


All the tracks on Rock Around the Clock were also released with other tracks on the From the Original Master Tapes, mastered by our host:

 

I have this release by The Bobby Fuller Four, I Fought the Law/KRLA King of the Wheels , Mustang (Del-Fi) DFCD 9010 from 1994 which contains both named albums and some singles.