The debut album by German punk/new wave legends Extrabreit was called “Ihre größten Erfolge”, which means “Their Greatest Successes”. It’s still the most beloved album of their catalog, but of course it was named ironically because they were nobodies when they released that album. Then there’s the infamous “Best Of The Beatles” album, by which Pete Best, the drummer who got the boot in 1962 for Ringo, wanted to cash in on the success of his former band mates.
Your mileage may vary but Shades of Deep Purple, the debut album by Deep Purple, could have served as the title of a Greatest Hits compilation in my opinion.
Circle Jerks’ third album was titled Golden Shower of Hits. It was not a compilation album. The title track was a punky spoof of the Stars-on-45 style medleys that were popular at the time.
Oh, I thought of another one, Ween’s “12 Golden Country Greats”, which are not 12 covers of country classics as you might suppose , but 10(!) original spoofs of Country music, excellently delivered.
Then there are the presumptuous best of albums by bands with a small repertoire. Dove: The Best of Belly is only the third album Belly released and the single song in their repertoire that even remotely qualifies as a hit, “Feed the Tree”, isn’t even on the Best of album in its original (radio hit) version.
Not an album, but the thread topic kind of reminds me of when Community did a clip-show episode where none of the clips were from previously aired episodes.
A weird sorta-best-of (very much in a Stiff Records kind of way). Thing is, at the time these guys were pretty much a bunch of non-entities. Now the cast list reads like key figures in the music of the time, great artists - and some non-entities.
