What’s your favorite, single-LP anthology collecting previously-issued music by one performer or band? (No double albums, no box sets.) A CD qualifies, as long as its length doesn’t exceed the 45 minutes or so of a standard LP.
My obvious nominee is The Who’s Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy, the essential collection of 14 pre-Who’s Next tracks – from the chords punching out the opening to “Can’t Explain” to the lingering last syllable of “I’m a Boy.”
But I’m also crazy about Anthology of Tom Waits, released on Asylum in 1985. There are lots of Waits anthologies, but this one just nails it for me. Stacking “Martha” and “Tom Traubert’s Blues” next to each other at the end of side 1 might be more heartbreak than most listeners can stand, so the producers added the hilarious (yet poignant) “The Piano Has Been Drinking” to close out the side. Side 2 offers a brilliant cover of “Somewhere” (from West Side Story) and brings it home with “Jersey Girl,” “San Diego Serenade” and “A Sight for Sore Eyes.” Mrs. Akaj cries every time.
I was introduced to the Flying Burrito Brothers by the originally only Dutch (the Dutch are known for their love of country rock) compilation “Hot Burrito”. Since then, I’ve owned or at least heard almost all of their other stuff, but I still think it’s one of the best compilations of one band on a single disc.
Lots and lots of 60s greatest hits albums come into play, since they collect all the good singles from albums that weren’t yet thought of as “albums”.
Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) by the Stones came out in 1966. Their early singles hadn’t been in the U.S. the gigantic hit that “Satisfaction” was and this followed by Aftermath solidified their position as the #1 competitors to the Beatles.
The Kinks Greatest Hits! gave them a similar boost later that year. Donovan’s Greatest Hits was the summing up of his career everyone was waiting for.
In America Best of the Beach Boys was a must, followed by The Byrds’ Greatest Hits and Retrospective: The Best of Buffalo Springfield.
You have to remember that a stereo album cost as much as a concert ticket in those days. Music snobs spent money on every release; the rest of us poor folk bought our favorites until the 70s made albums mandatory.
In the same vein, I bet R.E.M.'s Eponymous introduced the non-indie crowd to the one of the greats two decades later.
Yes, the Red and Blue Albums don’t count, because they don’t meet the OP’s single-LP criterion. 20 Greatest Hits does, apparently, but IMHO it doessn’t do the Beatles justice: I had this album on cassette back in the day, but I only really appreciated the Beatles once I started listening to their actual (non-compilation) albums.
My introduction to the Kinks’ classic period was a 24-song cassette compilation called Spotlight on The Kinks, which might have been my answer to this thread’s question if it had been released as a single LP, but it was not. However, I did find this single-LP Greatest Hits collection, which includes 18 of its 24 tracks—still a very impressive collection, though it omits some great songs like “Death of a Clown,” “David Watts,” and “A Well-Respected Man,” and much superior to what I think you were referring to as “The Kinks Greatest Hits!”
1974 saw the release of the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer, apparently in both single- and double-LP formats (at 46:21, it could easily fit on a single LP). It’s a great collection of their early material, though it stops right before they reached their arguable creative peak, with “Good Vibrations” and Pet Sounds.
Actually, I think my answer to this thread’s question is Queen’s Greatest Hits (though I can’t guarantee I won’t change my mind). “My” version is the 1981 U.S. version, though I understand there are different versions with different track listings.
Complete ‘B’ Sides by The Pixies
Besides original songs like the superior UK Surf version of “Wave of Mutilation” and other oddities, there are cuts where the Pixies demonstrate their chops as a first rate cover band with a couple Neil Young songs and a Spanish version of the Yardbirds’ “Evil Hearted You”.
There was a German album by Procol Harum titled A Whiter Shade of Pale that was a compilation of the best songs from their first four albums. It looks like it was also titled The Best of Procol Harum.
