I think Bowie may have inaugurated the ‘Greatest Hits’ tour idea in 1990 - when his career definitely seemed to be in decline and his gimmick of stating that these would be the final live outings for these songs was widely ridiculed.
That's a fair thought - I guess my listening has focused on Jim actually - his vocals are woeful. Hardly fair to tar a well playing band with the same brush. I guess they play so slowly as it's all he wants these days?!
Decline might be a harsh way of putting it, but most bands eventually become nostalgia acts to some extent or another. Then come the gimmicks to make all that seem fresh. Playing an album in its entirety or as the Stones did, have fans vote on a song. Acoustic sets help too.
I actually don't think this is thing. If you get to this point, your decline happened 20 years earlier. But when you do your first song cover after never including any on previous recordings, you're probably creativity drained.
When they start pairing with a bunch of guest stars. That always screams "coffin is half closed on the career".
I always took re recording greatest hits as a sign of a label change and the old label not wanting to split with royalties for old songs. I guess Cracker is the first band that pops in my head about this, two greatest hits sets released the same day in 2006, one with original tracks on Virgin, rerecorded versions on Greatest Hits Redux on Cooking Vinyl. I'm sure there are exceptions though.
I see ads on tv with America and members of the Family Stone beckoning me to attend their cruise. With a few drinks, it might be fun. When Mick Jones, Ritchie Ramone, and Henry Rollins start doing that, it will be time to join the pensioners at the local dive.
I am tempted to add the Blues standards album, but the ones from Gregg Allman and the Stones were both pretty good.
This was when he polled the fans for the set list and someone in the music press ran a campaign to get The Laughing Gnome in the set. He wouldn't play it!