Songs that should have been on greatest hits compilations

If I remember correctly ( and I could be wrong here, please correct me if I am ) "Penny Lane" / "Strawberry Fields Forever" was distributed as a double A - Side single. Since "Penny Lane" was placed on "1" where was "Strawberry Fields?"

 

Billboard charted each side of a single separately at the time. "Penny Lane" was #1, "Strawberry Fields" only #8. In Britain, both sides charted together but only reached #2.

 

The underdub/alternate version of "Jimmy Mack" by Martha And The Vandellas comes to mind here,as does the alternate version of "Mama's Pearl" by the Jackson 5.

 

I know there have been many that have wondered about the Beatles "1" song selection: Why no Please Please Me, Strawberry Fields Forever.

The congs on "One" charted at number one on Billboard in US or Record Retailer in UK or both.

Please Please Me did not hit #1 on either chart (Billboard, Record Retailer)though IIRC it did hit #1 on other UK charts. Strawberry Fields was part of a double A-side with Penny Lane that hit #2 on Record Retailer in UK, but Penny Lane hit #1 on Billboard in US. Strawberry Fields hit #8 in US. Love Me Do (I believe hit #17 in UK back in 1962), but hit #1 on Billboard in US. Come Together and Something were a double A-side that hit #1 in US for one week on Billboard in 1969. From Me To You did hit #1 on Record Retailer hence its inclusion.

Brian

 

You must also realize that it would be impossible to include "Please Please Me" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" because there's not enough time.

The best single disc Beatles compilation is a collection of mp3's. At 128kbps, you can include all official Beatles albums. At a higher bitrate (I used 192), you can include almost everything and leave off those songs you don't think are good enough to compete with the rest. I came up with 161 files, combining songs that run together.

Tim

 

The Beatles' 1 album is somewhat unusual among hits collections in that the song selection is based on entirely objective criteria: which songs hit #1 on Billboard and/or Record Retailer. It's kind of funny that the song selection gets criticized anyway.

 

Van Halen's Best of Vol. 1 is a badly compiled hits collection. Missing all the hit covers ("You Really Got Me," "Pretty Woman," "Dancing in the Streets") probably due to royalty issues. Includes some iffy album tracks ("Poundcake," "Unchained") rather than legit hits like "I'll Wait," "Finish What Ya Started," and "Hot for Teacher." And if you're gonna include album tracks, where the heck is "Jamie's Cryin'"???

Also, it's been 7 years since Vol. 1. When do we get Vol. 2? It's not like Van Halen mk. III is racking up the hits!

 

Since VH is currently without a label, expect Vol 2 when and if they sign up with another label and release product....you can be sure WB will put out VOL2 to compete with it.

Unchained ROCKS dude!! I had a problem with Can't Stop Lovin You being on there....it got 0 airplay!

 

At least the Japanese version of van Halen Best of Vol. I has Hot for Teacher as a bonus track. It just costs a lot more for one extra track.

Didn't Eddie toy with the idea of putting out a Best-of covering the David years and another with Sammie? Should have stuck with that!

Brian

 

Actually it was Penny Lane that was only #2 in the UK beat out by Please Release Me by Engelbert Humperdink! So my thing is if Penny Lane made it onto the ONE CD. I also feel it should have included Strawberry Fields. So I'm surprised when I often think that it is on there but only to find Penny Lane!

 

"You Know What to Do," one of Carly Simon's greatest post-Elektra singles (and a truly erotic video to boot), is missing from the recent Rhino 2-CD collection. Considering all the padding on the second disc, that is inexcusable. (It's also missing her great "The Night Before Christmas," but that's more understandable.)

The 2-CD The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac (which should have had a subtitle "1975-1997" or something like that, as it ignores everything before Buckingham and Nicks joined the band) omits several key tracks and puts some highly questionable ones on instead. "Love in Store" and "The Farmer's Daughter" are missing, and do we really need a live version of "Go Insane," which wasn't even a FM track?? We'd be better off with a best-of for Lindsey Buckingham, which would finally put "Holiday Road" on an easy-to-find CD. 'Course, they'd probably omit it!

 

One of my recent complaints was Billy Idol's decision to include the studio, non-hit version of "Mony Mony" on his recent hits collection, but ignoring the live, #1 charting version. I seem to recall his manager saying in ICE that Billy liked the studio version better!! To my knowledge, the live version has never appeared on CD.

 

After buying the Tom Petty Boxset, I thought the track "Waiting For Tonight" which was previously unreleased, was as good a track as any of his greatest hits!!! Might of at least made a nice bonus track.

 

Yes he did....
The other problem stems from an interview I read where Eddie said he basically told Alex.."YOU pick the songs!" for the greatest hits. Al did a crappy job!

 

If I am not mistaken, Love In Store IS on the Very Best of Fleetwood Mac, though, yes Farmer's Daughter isn't. yet I might add, another track off of the Live album that was left off and shouldn't have been was Fireflies which I believe was the single.

Brian

 

My theory: A Lindsey Buckingham solo track, performed under the Fleetwood Mac name, was included on the VERY BEST OF to offset the inclusion of the the non-Buckingham Fleetwood Mac single, "Skies The Limit." I don't know, of course, but artists have managers and agents to see to these sort of things.

I like the live "Go Insane" quite a bit!

 

It looks like the 20th century masters cd,s miss everything.They really miss out on a lot. Why shrink a greatest hits completion to nothing?

 

Peter Gabriel-Shaking The Tree (best) missing:"In You Eyes"

Simple Minds-Greatist Hits missing: "New Gold Dream"

The Plimsouls-Plus missing their biggest hit:"A Million Miles Away"

The Cure-Greatist Hits missing:"Hot,Hot,Hot" and "A Nite Like This"

Squeeze-seems like every Squeeze comp issued since Singles 45 and under is missing "If I Didn't Love You" from ARGYBARGY

 

How about the most recent Pretenders (import) best of:Greatist Hits.Missing-"Mystery Achievement","My City Was Gone","Show Me" and of course: Cuban Slide.Why can't we have at least one greatist hits of theirs limited to the first 3 albums? (I'd gladly swap any of the above mentioned songs for I got you babe,Hymm To Her,I'll Stand By You etc.

 

Most of them also seemed to drop "Another Nail In My Heart," which I'd always considered an essential Squeeze track.

Wasn't there an Art Of Noise Best-Of a few years back that didn't include "Close (To The Edit)"?

 

Yeah, and I even had a track listing in front of me when I posted it! I was looking at the wrong disc... I ASS U ME'd that it would be on the second disc rather than the first ...

[Another pet peeve of way too many greatest hits collections is that they don't even make an attempt at being chronological! The least they can do is group songs from the same album together, even if you don't arrange the "hits" in order of single release or service to FM radio as a suggested album track.]

and yes, "Fireflies" should have been on there, too. It was a bigger hit than "The Farmer's Daughter," which was issued as a single but didn't even chart.

Actually, compared to the Carly Simon 2-CD set on Rhino, the FM set was inspired... mostly killer, very little filler (though I could have done with the studio versions of "Big Love" and "I'm So Afraid" rather than the live ones), and it included the single versions of several tracks.

 

And it's only my favorite Squeeze single! Couldn't believe that the "eyechart" greatest hits collection was missing this song!

"If I Didn't Love You" is also on the Squeeze A&M Classics Volume 25 CD, which came out in 1987 and has 19 tracks but is missing "Hourglass," which hadn't even been a hit when it was compiled.

 

Some tracks seem to miss comps worldwide--no easy feat, given most major acts have all manner of comp variants from dozens of countries. Yet I've never found the DC5's "Please Stay" on any album, anywhere; either you have the 45, or you're outta luck.

This is also true of a few Van Morrison WB flips that should have made it onto somewhere ages ago, but just haven't.

Another: Gerry Rafferty's "Big Change In The Weather," which was the US flip of "Baker Street." If anyone's seen that on a comp, by all means let me know, as it's a fine song but there was no space for it on the CITY TO CITY LP.

Who knows how many more there are like this.....



ED

 

That's an easy one. They're midline-priced as opposed to full priced. They have 12 songs (average) on 'em because Universal figured that, based on the way album royalties are determined in the USA (by song rather than by LP), they could make money selling a $10 CD with 12 songs on it. Based on the sheer number of these CDs that have been released since 1999, they were right.

To be honest, for some artists, putting 12 songs on 'em is a real stretch (Semisonic, for example, has a 20th Century Masters collection); for others, putting only 12 on 'em is a crime (Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Marvin Gaye, any of the great Motown acts, The Who -- several of these now have a Volume 2).

And for a few others, it's a public service; earlier this year, Motown issued a Barrett Strong 20th Century Masters collection, which for the first time ever, collected all 12 of his released songs in one legitimate place, including at least one song that only two copies of the 45 are known to exist, and the original master is damaged, so one of those two copies had to be used to make the CD.... It's a fascinating story, and you can read more about it from Harry Weinger on the Motown boards.