Musicians / Bands for Which Owning a "Greatest Hits" Compilation is Enough

[annie]

Annie:

How can you possibly limit yourself to just one greatest hits compilation by the Rolling Stones, a band that has a deeper discography than just about any other band that comes to mind? The Stones have had 74 charting singles alone in the United Kjngdom and the States and that ignores their many legendary album cuts such as "Gimme Shelter" and "Midnight Rambler" which were never released as singles.

While not necessarily my personal favourites, here's my own guess as to the fifty most essential Stone tracks of all time:

I never cared for the Stones. Of the songs you mentioned the following are on my CD:


(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
Ruby Tuesday
Jumping Jack Flash
Sympathy for the Devil
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Brown Sugar
Miss You
Start Me Up

and
Sad Sad Sad
Rock and a Hard Place
Factory Girl
Can't Be Seen
Little Red Rooster
Paint It Black
High Wire
Sex Drive

It's a live concert.

 

[runtfan]

Shoot, I've got dozens of Greatest Hits/ Best Of compilations in my collection. Most of them are pretty satisfactory, given that the fact I don't care enough about the given band to buy the original albums in the first place. There's some that are a song or two short of what I want ( so I'll download those tunes or find some other source to acquire those tunes). In many cases the compilation is plenty more than I need.

 

[Foxhound]

I never cared for the Stones.

 

[Aktivator]

none
Either you like a band and should own their albums or you don't like a band and shouldn't own any of their albums. I'm not a fan of greatest hits albums and usually some artists idea of what their greatest hits are compared to what I consider to be their best tunes is always different.

 

[Mr. Shadow]

 

[Soot and Stars]

none
Either you like a band and should own their albums or you don't like a band and shouldn't own any of their albums. I'm not a fan of greatest hits albums and usually some artists idea of what their greatest hits are compared to what I consider to be their best tunes is always different.

So is a "Best Of" carefully selected by the artist acceptable? Are you saying Greatest Hits don't represent an artist or if a listener buys one they don't like the artist?

I agree that if you really like an artist work then it makes sense to want their whole or most of their catalog but even the biggest music fan in the world puts artist on different levels of interest. The average person can't buy everything in the world. I know because I try to stretch my dollar. It only stretchs so far! So for every 100 artist that I spend my hard earned money on I have a band like Creedence where Chronicle gives me everything I need from them. Maybe I can't profess absolute love and devotion for them by your logic but why the hell would I have anything from them if I didn't enjoy it or truly "like" them! For status? For cred? Pleeeaaasssee! I'll show just as much enthusiasm when I'm cranking there shit as anyone! I just find your sweeping statement a little musically snobbish and I'm usually on the same page as you! What's up wid dat Aktivator?

 

[METALPRIEST]

ROCK ON!! Here Here!! I won't get in the middle here...but I have to agree. ...anybody can ADORE one song (or selected tunes from an artist's history) as another can ADORE an entire catalog.

 

[TheFeldster]

Personally, I'm swamped with Greatest Hits CDs. When I don't have an artist in my library, I'll always start with a Greatest Hits, and build up from there. That said, there's about a gazillion billion trillion million artists that I've only got the Greatests Hits of and want more of I can't say there's any band which the greatest hits CD was enough for me (but I'm a fan of the rarer cuts and stuff, so maybe it's just me )

 

[Aktivator]

So is a "Best Of" carefully selected by the artist acceptable? Are you saying Greatest Hits don't represent an artist or if a listener buys one they don't like the artist?

I agree that if you really like an artist work then it makes sense to want their whole or most of their catalog but even the biggest music fan in the world puts artist on different levels of interest. The average person can't buy everything in the world. I know because I try to stretch my dollar. It only stretchs so far! So for every 100 artist that I spend my hard earned money on I have a band like Creedence where Chronicle gives me everything I need from them. Maybe I can't profess absolute love and devotion for them by your logic but why the hell would I have anything from them if I didn't enjoy it or truly "like" them! For status? For cred? Pleeeaaasssee! I'll show just as much enthusiasm when I'm cranking there shit as anyone! I just find your sweeping statement a little musically snobbish and I'm usually on the same page as you! What's up wid dat Aktivator?

well I guess I was a little over the top with my statement since now after reading it, its not even true about my music collection. I guess I'm not a fan of best of/greatest hit albums. If I don't know an artist I tend to get their best rated album or new album if I think I like them. I don't get the greatest hit album because I know in the end run I'm either going to be obsessed with them or not buy anything else. I understand it works for most people to get the greatest hits album (by the way I do own a few) but for me it doesn't work.

 

[Soot and Stars]

well I guess I was a little over the top with my statement since now after reading it, its not even true about my music collection. I guess I'm not a fan of best of/greatest hit albums. If I don't know an artist I tend to get their best rated album or new album if I think I like them. I don't get the greatest hit album because I know in the end run I'm either going to be obsessed with them or not buy anything else. I understand it works for most people to get the greatest hits album (by the way I do own a few) but for me it doesn't work.

For me it depends when I get into an artist and how far I'd have to back up. Newer artist or anything from the 90's on I can catch up on the catalog but for a classic rock artist from the 70's and before I would REALLY have to like them to start catalog building. You are right though in that aspect. After buying hits packages from classic rock artist I tend to be in a safe zone where I feel I need little else. For artist from the 90's on I tend to buy everything even rare singles/b-sides/comps/live albums. But for me I see nothing wrong with a shortcut album until I can get further into the artist down the road if I choose!