Greatest Hits
I had, for the longest time, this snobbery against “Best Of”s and “Greatest Hits” collections for bands and musicians; it was probably in some part brought on by the whole Britpop thing of, if you were really into a band, then you bought the singles and cared about the B-sides (Well, CD extra tracks, but you know what I mean) and that somehow made you a “real” fan in a way that someone who only knew a band from their greatest hits wasn’t. Similarly, perhaps, a feeling that any band who’s had a compilation album is past their prime and therefore ready to be retired and moved on in favor of someone more worthwhile of my time.
Looking back, of course, both those attitudes are ridiculous and, in many ways, an accident of youth. When I was moving to the US, I culled my music collection by burning CDs with only my favorite songs from the countless singles and albums I had, creating my own Best Ofs for the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Small Faces, and so on and so on. A lot of it was for practical reasons; I literally didn’t have the space to bring all of them, but there was also a sense of, “I don’t need to listen to half of these songs again, and I really don’t care about remembering which songs come from Hunky Dory and which from Low anymore.” I’m not sure whether that counts as maturing, or just getting older; there are times and bands for whom I miss that level of intensity and compulsiveness (Don’t get me started on the difference between the two versions of Gorillaz’ “Latin Simone” and why the original is better than the album version), as well as the fetishistic attitude towards albums as art objects, meant to be listened to as a complete and final thing instead of zipped about through iPod playlists, after all. But for everything else, “Greatest Hits” suit me just fine. As long as they don’t have to include the hits I never liked in the first place.
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