I was in a well-known music retailer this afternoon in the mood for a new CD, and thought I might get an AC/DC “Best Of”- they’re a well known, highly popular and successful band, so surely it should be in the “AC/DC” sub-section, right?
That’s funny, I can’t seem to see one here. Perhaps they’re out of stock. No, explains the heavily Alternative-looking staff member, they’ve never actually released a “Best Of” CD.
Wow, thinks I, but it would seem that’s true. I always thought a “Best Of” was de rigueur for pretty much any band that’s released enough songs to fill a CD (and quite a few that haven’t), but apparently not.
Which got me thinking: Which other big, popular, well-known, successful bands have never released a “Best Of” album? There must be a few, surely?
The Who has put out nearly twice as many compilation albums as they have actual studio albums! Some of them are more collections of previously released rare songs than ‘best of’ albums, however.
Not to pile on or anything, but one of the biggest complaints that Who geeks have is the endless series of “Best-Of” and compilation CDs / videos that various companies have dumped on the market.
The last one, “Greatest Hits”, released in conjuction with their Super Bowl appearance, is the just the 2004 collection “Then And Now” with one track subtracted (Emminence Front) and one added (Real Good Looking Boy).
There was a country band called Perfect Stranger that only had one radio hit. Their first CD was titled as “Great Hits” and they never had another one. Garth Brooks also released a “Best of Chris Gaines” CD. I guess both were technically correct.
They actually had a “Worst of” plus some other compilations like “Flight Log”, “2400 Fulton Street” and “Jefferson Airplane Loves You”
Joni Mitchell resisted her record company for years about putting out a greatest hits because that usually hurts catalog sales but eventually gave in (plus I think they had the right to if sales weren’t high enough).
The Beatles had two “best of” in the early 1970s with “1962-1966” and “1967-1970”…both featuring photos of them looking down a staircase at two different times in their career but I don’t think any came out in the CD age. The three 2-CD “Anthology” is mostly outtakes/rejects