"Greatest Hits" albums that are MISSING HITS (1 Viewer)

[buttmunker]

Why is that? Why when a record company decides to put out a greatest-hits collection of one of their artists, they don't release ALL the hits?

When Bruce Springsteen's "Greatest Hits" came out in 1995, they left off Top 10 hits like I'm Goin' Down and Cover Me.

What kind of practice is that? I'm sure there are others that I can't think of right now.........

 

[WillG]

That's an easy one. So that they can release another greatest hits album or a boxed set down the line

 

[gene c]

Greatest Hits compilations are generally not very popular around here. Most seem to feel you should listen to an album in it's entirety to preserve the artists intent, and such. But I like to listen to them while taking long trips in the car. And I agree that sometimes there is a glaring omission like "Don't Touch Me There!" by The Tubes. What were they thinking???

And of course, what I think should be there is probably different from what someone else thinks should be. Case in point. I would have included "Your Diamond's Sparkling In The Sand" on Tower Of Power's but it wasn't really a big hit. But, come on, how could Three Dog Night leave off both "Eli's Coming" and "Mama Told Me Not To Come"? Not to mention "Out In The Country" "Easy To Be Hard" and "Celebrate". IMO there are several others they could have left off.

 

[BrettV]

Van Halens greatest hits is missing Hot for Teacher. I just don't get it.

 

[GuruAskew]

7 of the 12 tracks off "Born in the USA" album were released as singles. It's practically a "greatest hits" album itself.

Repeating a full 7 songs (obviously more than half the album) isn't a good move no matter how you look at it. It would diminish sales of the full album and take space that could be used for more varied selections, which is the whole point of a compilation. The more "Born in the USA" tracks you put on it the less it makes sense to even put out another album because "Born in the USA" will always be readily available.

They're called "greatest hits" and not "all the hits" for a reason. They're made for people who don't want to invest in an artist's entire catalog, but the choices made on the compilations are still made by people other than the listener and you simply can't expect any person or group of people to select a group of songs that will satisfy everyone.

I'm the kind of person who likes to invest in an artist's entire catalog and the "greatest hits" compilations I own are the ones that offer substantial bonus content, like Springsteen's "Greatest Hits", which has 5 songs not on previous albums, his "Essential" comp has a full album's worth of outtakes too, even if the first two discs are redundant. I also own "18 Tracks", which is pretty much shameless in the "these should have been on the box set that came out last year" kinda way. In any case, for this reason alone I rarely pay any attention to the track lists as I inevitably own the tracks on their original albums.

The one noticeable omission I've noticed in spite of this is the lack of "Can't Stop" on the Red Hot Chili Peppers Greatest Hits album. Again, this probably was done in order to not completely kill "By the Way" sales, but it was a pretty glaring omission. Luckily the video is included on the bonus DVD (though it's also on that sweet Romanek disc).

But yeah, ultimately expecting something to be all-encompassing when by its very definition it isn't is pretty foolish.