I MISS GREATEST HITS ALBUMS
The advent of streaming has had many advantages for music fans – access to millions of songs for a relatively inexpensive fee (or free, with ads), the ability to listen anywhere anytime, curated playlists and recommendations … But one consequence of services like Spotify and Apple Music becoming so dominant that this music fan isn’t thrilled about is the demise (more or less) of the greatest hits album.
Perhaps I’m showing my age, but growing up, there was something exciting about an artist you liked releasing a best-of compilation. All their biggest singles! On the one album! Back when music was far from free and not available at the click of a mouse, it was often the best way to get to listen to an act’s back catalogue. Plus, if a greatest hits album was well put-together, it’d come with insightful liner notes, retro photos and maybe one or two new songs. It was an event.
It’s why some of the best-selling albums of
all time are greatest hits collections. Albums like Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection, ABBA’s Gold: Greatest Hits and Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) by Eagles have sold tens of millions of copies around the world. With their all killer, no filler tracklistings, they are, in many ways, the perfect albums.
The greatest hits era was dealt its first blow by the rise of downloading and consumers’ ability to cherrypick tracks in the iTunes Store to compile their own best of rather than purchase a complete album. But as Pink’s 2010 release, Greatest Hits … So Far!!!, proved, there was still a market for a well-executed album that did all that work for the listener. It ended up as the highest-selling album in Australia that year (and the 12th biggest in 2011).
But since then, big-name artists have shied away from the format. Rihanna, One Direction, Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber are all acts who would traditionally have released a best-of collection by now. They all certainly have the hits to qualify. And I blame streaming for depriving me of a Rihanna compilation that narrows down her extensive body of work to the essentials. Sure there are plenty of Rihanna playlists that do that on Spotify (which I use) and Apple Music (which I don’t). But that’s exactly the problem – there are plenty of them. All put together by someone with a bias, whether it’s which songs to include or which order to present them in. Would it be so hard for an official best-of to be compiled? Releases by any of those acts would surely get millions of streams from people too time-poor to put together their own playlist.
Thank goodness for Kylie Minogue, who has released approximately 257 compilations in her career, and this week issues one more: Step Back in Time: The Definitive Collection (out Fri., Jun. 28). It’s available physically on CD, vinyl and cassette (for the old-timers), and obviously will be available to download and stream, which to me seems like covering all bases. •