Legendary Compilations
-
Artist:
I did a couple posts at A Future in Noise on legendary compilations recently, to quote from my own writing:
"Audiophiles are well-known for being skeptical of a compilation's purpose; "just get x and y" albums, they might say when you inquire about where to begin with a band, or at worst "everything". A brilliant compilation can, at the very least, to a superior job of garnering new fans, and, further still, inspire one to track down all of the band's full-length albums or dive deeper into the genre in question.
No, I'm not talking about standard-fare greatest hits packages (such as the useless Time For Heroes Libertines compilation- the group only released two albums!) or bands whose career can be summed up with a straightforward singles disc (take, for example, the Smiths' Singles, or the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady, fine places to begin), or, further still, not those over-priced bonanzas that contain all of an artist's catalog with little extra: these are the legendary compilations. There's definitive box sets, and those ones juicy rarities and extras you won't find anywhere else."
I've built up a list on Rate Your Music of these such 'legendary compilations' with suggestions from RYM users, which I've embedded below. I'd love to hear your suggestions as well!
![Buffalo Springfield [Collection]](http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s10804.jpg)
Locating MOG account...
Comments (5)
Al Green's Greatest Hits
Whenever I think of compilations, I think of Various Artist comps (seems there are some). Most of these "greatest hits" shouldn't qualify...unless they're the same thing?
I guess if you have any B-sides, unreleased tracks, or rarities on it, it complies just nicely (The Cure, GBV, etc.).
I was just going with the flow..but as far as various artists comps..
1st wave ska - like it!
@Cody B - hey, thanks for the suggestions, I've updated the RYM list :) I've been meaning to check out early ska as well, since I'm only really familiar with the stuff like the Specials / Madness..
@Eric5776 - I was going to lean more towards various artist compilations and single artist packages that have extras like b-sides, etc., but as soon as I posted about it at Rate Your Music, I got a lot of suggestions of well-known or essential artist compilations as well, so I thought I'd go with that too! :P