What makes a good best-of?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

You don't have to read the review of the Radiohead best-of which got me thinking about this - the relevant bit is this: "This compilation is dominated by a pair of central ideas of what Radiohead sound like: emotionally nourishing, impressionistic balladeers, or crunchy, tech- and texture-savvy rockers. The outliers, moments when the band has dabbled more in mood, atmosphere, or a love of pure sound...aren't represented at all."

Now admittedly Scott's talking about the 2CD version not the 1CD version, which would have more room to roam, but my reaction was still "DUDE IT'S A BEST OF" - one of the things best ofs are for is to boil down an act to its essence, and with the best will in the world the experimental stuff has always been fringier to Radiohead than some might have you think.

But maybe you think best ofs are for representing a band's entire output, or spotlighting hidden depths, or presenting fan favourites, or or or - what do you look for in a compilation?

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

ARGH I have just had to go through a bunch of stuff for a certain miserable band this entire morning and they've been driving me round the twist >:(

However I did find this (http://www.imeem.com/mundele/music/t8qPhDJL/daau_of_rdhd_225/), which is really quite lovely.

(am too busy to answer the actual question!)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

It depends on the artist really - plus I think that so-called 'outliers' are often a lot more essential to the band than compilers often think.

With straight-up pop acts it's easy - just the singles. This may not make for the best possible best-of, especially as pop acts seem to be getting progressively worse at choosing singles (a Girls Aloud or Sugababes or even Britney singles collection would be v underwhelming), but it's a "does what it says on the tin" deal anyway. This is always going to be a problem w/compilations anyway - I used to think they were a useful way into the band, but I actively avoid them now, because they discourage further investigation.

With acts like Radiohead I guess it's harder, because they're torn between wanting to make the product worthwhile for their completist fans who already have everything they've released, and the casual consumers/younger fans who may only just be getting into Radiohead (and even then the market is different - it's people who want the (few) hitz vs people who want Radiohead's entire (narrow) aesthetic spectrum represented).

Short answer though: in this age of itunes and so on, isn't the entire notion of a greatest hits compilation going to be outdated soon anyway?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

what Tori Amos (who's v much a Radiohead-esque act in terms of...her success in the mainstream vs her insane fanbase) did was think up a bonkers librarian concept (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_a_Librarian), present it in a nice box with DVD extras, leave off half her singles in favour of album INTERLUDES (!), and remaster a bunch of stuff really badly. It was a total botch job but oddly I found it was worth it because one of the new tracks (or it may be an old one she uncovered), 'Snow Cherries From France', is really, really amazing.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

But wouldn't you say that as a result, the Tori Amos compilation would appeal far more to her existing fans than to someone who was new-ish to her work?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think the concept was reasonably strong but the execution was botched (the remasters made the songs worse) and also a little bit half-hearted (if you're going to do something so explicitly fan-orientated why not go the whole hog and put on more rarities, unreleased tracks, maybe even official versions of her fan-favourite live covers etc). God knows what a casual consumer would have made of it.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah the last question is kind of a crux, except presumably when a 15-year-old kid 10 years from now goes to wherever he goes to to access music he'll still have to ask himself "what Radiohead do I get first?"

I think "Download this band's 10 most popular tracks for $5" type of deals are probably the future here (though wouldn't there be a premium on those tracks, come to think of it?)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Also "most popular tracks" aren't necessarily the ones you'll like best (which is where the uncertainty creeps in) - it depends what sort of consumer you are, that model caters better to casual fans. The advantage of downloads though is that you're not necessarily shelling out £15 for a compilation which, because it's trying to be everything to everyone, ends up being awkwardly put together - you can d/l maybe the five most popular itunes songs, or maybe five of your friends' recommendations, or just five random tracks, see where they lead you, and it won't leave you too out-of-pocket.

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

people who want Radiohead's entire (narrow) aesthetic spectrum represented

For Radiohead read whoever, but that's exactly what I want from a compilation - even if I'd never liked any of a band / artist's singles, I might be interested in a best of that represented a broader spectrum. Fan favourites are the things that are easiest to find so there's less value in collecting them all together...

isn't the entire notion of a greatest hits compilation going to be outdated soon anyway?

Maybe - although maybe also the massive glut of music that's available and often a bit contextless might make it more important, this idea that an act can put together 15 songs from across 4 albums (or out of 50 tracks, depending on what happens to the concept of the album) and say, "listen to this, this is us and these are all the things we can sound like" - there's a definite starting point, rather than just downloading at random the songs with titles you like.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think platforms which allow for user recommendations are going to become increasingly important - say if you hear a selection of five tracks from across an act's career, like them all but LOVE one - in places like last.fm what I'd then do is check out who also particularly loves that song, what other songs by that act they like, and go from there. I agree that "packages" of songs are still going to be important as a way into an act, but they have to be as individually tailored as possible, otherwise it's a "try to cater to everyone, end up pleasing no one" deal.

[ruudboy.livejournal.com]

wanting to make the product worthwhile for their completist fans who already have everything they've released

Any acts who attempt to do this by putting 2 new songs on the best of deserve to have their faces smashed in with a brick.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

If you're a huge fan of a band, the chances are you've got most of the major album and singles releases by that artist. So it really depends whether the artist/label are trying to fleece their existing fans or win over new fans. In the former case, having some less heralded, rare or previously unreleased material - the outliers of which you speak - is a good idea (see Nirvana, who put previously unheard 'You Know You're Right' as Track 1 on their Best Of). But a straightforward "Ronseal" Singles Collection (does exactly what it says on the tin) ought really to be a tool for encouraging beginners with little prior knowledge of the act to delve into the most commercial work of said act. I probably couldn't have named more than a couple of Ramones or Madness songs before I bought either of their "Best Of" albums, but both introduced me to the artist so well that I subsequently purchased some of their back catalogues. And both those compilations were Singles Collections in the true meaning of the phrase.

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

Also:

isn't the entire notion of a greatest hits compilation going to be outdated soon anyway?

No, probably not. If you're new to an artist, it's much easier to buy a pre-selected compilation of their Greatest Hits (however those "greatest hits" have been defined) than to try and purchase your own compilation by randomly selecting songs from a list.

I'm amazed though that no band has yet marketed a Greatest Hits album where the fan chooses their own selection of the artist's output, but it comes in a proper case with artwork etc. Or maybe they have and it just passed me by.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I guess the barrier to that is that if the fan is sufficiently informed to select the songs him/herself, they'll probably already own those songs!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

A few years ago - I remember this from Glenn McDonald's The War Against Silence - the Alarm (!!!) put out a very limited box set, and anyone who bought that box set could request a unique, exclusive acoustic performance of an Alarm song of their choice, which would be included in it. Or some arrangement like that.

Obviously this is not practical for a fanbase of Radiohead or Tori size, though it would keep the band out of mischief.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Mightn't it also be a bit of a headache as regards royalties?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I LAUGH in the face of such headaches!

(But not if they're R*d**h**d releated! Wah!)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

if the fan is sufficiently informed to select the songs him/herself, they'll probably already own those songs!

Not true! I can think of loads of acts that I own next to nothing by where I'm either waiting for the "right" comp to come along or until I get a better handle on what their good stuff allegedly/actually is. Granted, these are mostly acts from the 50s, 60s and 70s. But some current chart acts too - Mariah springs to mind!

So I'm all for bespoke compilations.

[lockedintheatti.livejournal.com]

The closest I can think of is Bjork, where the track list on the released version was chosen by fans in a poll of all her singles, and the tracklisting is in order of popularity (this is essentially why her biggest UK hit, It's Oh So Quiet, is absent). In the boxset made available at the same time, there is a second greatest hits, this time with the track selection chosen by Bjork.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Wire's old compilation "The A List" was chosen in a fan poll too, and this in the pre internet era. I really liked that idea, and it made for a good compilation too!

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Minutemen did something similar as well. Not that I've heard it.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Didn't David Bowie let the fans select one bonus song for his best-of, then take his ball and go home when an orchestrated campaign resulted in that song being (early, funny) The Laughing Gnome?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

IIRC this was for selecting the tracklist of his world tour (I believe a "farewell" tour). So he'd have had to play The Laughing Gnome every night, arf arf.

[credoimprobus]

Not quite the same, of course, but before they broke up for good Curve were offering custom-made cdr's of unreleased tracks to fans. So it's occurred in some incarnation, at least!

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I agree with The Lex, it depends which act we're talking about. But if it's one that's defined mostly by singles, then I'll expect to see all the hits on there.

One of my bugbears is chronology (bear in mind I still listen mainly from CD/vinyl and can't be arsed to re-program a CD). I really hate it when compilers front load 'best of's with the most well known tracks and the debut single is, like, track 21 or the last song on Side 2 or something. If the record's been deliberately sequenced out of chronology to create an enjoyable listening experience (cf ABBA Gold) then fine. Otherwise, just put the songs in chronological order, dudes.

Right, proper answer

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

We were chatting about this the other day with regards to The Fall's "50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong". It's a great best-of and genuinely represents all the *good* stuff they've done over the last thirty-odd years, whether that's sproingy punk-pop or dirgey drunken mumbling or sparse ghost stories. They're not a singles band as such, but most of their singles just happen to be bloody good too and worthy of inclusion.

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

I like big sprawling best ofs, especially when I don't know much about the artist's actual studio albums. Being able to tackle two and a half hours of new stuff in that way is great fun.

I can't speak for the 2CD one, but the single CD Radiohead one is pointless - 16 songs if I remember rightly, and most of it is stuff that anyone interested would already own. Surely anyone who wants Creep has it by now?

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Aside from being one for the completists, aren't trad greatest hits / bests-of the one last grasp of the record company to shill an act to people who would never ordinarily buy a cd? I don't buy the arguement that they serve as a gateway to an artists back catalogue, as I always imagine that these discs are snapped up by people who don't care for an artist's oeuvre, cf. Carry On Up The Charts.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Totally depends on the act. Radiohead are pretty high up there on that 'REALLY don't need a Best Of' list, though. Difficult to see who it would be aimed at.

[koganbot]

(oops, too many goofs so here's a repost)

Some unrelated thoughts here:

In the old days especially, when singles and albums buyers were not the same people, Best-Ofs and Hits packages were ways for (1) people who owned some but not all the singles to get the ones they didn't own at a fairly cheap price (with singles going for about $1 and albums for $3 or $4, this was a good deal), (2) those people to play the singles all in a row without having to get up and change what was on the record player, (3) album buyers to get their favorites all on one album, especially from a band they like but don't love fanatically, (4) album buyers to get the singles that were never on an album.

Also, I think there was an attempt to make the album a viable listening experience; that is, don't just throw the hits on in any order. So The Rolling Stones' Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) in its U.S. version had the ballad "As Tears Go By" as its third track, which is often standard placement for where you put a ballad on an album by a band that's primarily dance or rock.

Their Greatest Hits by the Eagles is now the best-selling album in the U.S. (29 million copies), having outsold Thriller by about two million. So for lots of people this is likely one of only two or three Eagles albums they own.

Whereas Led Zeppelin has had a remasters compilation that sold 800,000 and a box set that sold a couple million but neither has anything like the sales of Led Zeppelin IV (Zoso), which is over 23 million in the U.S.

So, you know, album acts and singles acts.

And then there are compilations that are meant to introduce a lot of a band's music to an audience. The Kinks had had only one hit in the U.S. after 1966 ("Lola"), and only one other hit ("Sunny Afternoon") that postdated their first Greatest Hits album from late '65. So when The Kinks Kronikles compilation came out in 1972 (drawing from the band's output from 1966 to 1970) it basically introduced or reintroduced the band to the American audience. It helped that the album had excellent programming and notes by John Mendelssohn. So the album wasn't just a collection, it was an argument for the band.

There are probably other instances where a compilation helped to establish or widen a performers' reputation, though those are often with dead or noncurrent acts.

EXAMPLE IN ANOTHER ART FORM: I've heard that The Portable William Faulkner (1946) brought Faulkner to general attention (rather than to the select literary few) as One Of Our Great Authors. (Real Punks Don't Wear Black was conceived in a similar spirit.)

[koganbot]

(That is, up until 1972 the Kinks had only had one post-1966 hit. They ended up scoring a few more in later years.)