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Rufas2000 -> RE: Newsboys, "Shine the hits" lacking? (4/5/2008 2:14:44 PM)
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quote:
I think Greatest hits albums should have ALL THE HITS!!
Yes they should but most times they don't. Just a marketing tool by record execs to make a few extra bucks.
As far as the Newsboys' go I am not into them much. Good at what they do and I like a few of their songs ("Not Ashamed" comes to mind).
Warning: The rest of this post is about Greatest Hits CDs in general.
There are a number of challenges with Greatest Hits, Best Ofs etc. (I've been told there is a difference but I don't see one. I imagine they get misnamed often i.e. something that is really a "Best Of" gets labeled a "Greatest Hits" and vice versa). We'll call them "comps" (as in compilation) to make it easy.
The challenges include:
Purpose: What is the collection trying to accomplish? Gathering the biggest hits in one place? Chronicle the overall output of an artist over a specific period of time? Offer the best music the artist created during their career? Is it supposed to be brief to appeal to the casual fan or exhaustive for the bigger fan? Most comps don't know or don't focus on what they are trying to accomplish (other than the label's real motive: profits, which there isn't anything wrong with perse but ... see ahead).
What to put?: Comps have difficult decisions to make. There are some obvious choices but then what? And who decides? Usually marketing geniuses make the decisions based on selling more stuff. They figure you'll buy the comp and then realize that one of your favorites isn't on there so (they hope) you purchase something else. And that is why "Love, Liberty and Disco" isn't on this CD. Even I know that was a hit. Doesn't matter how long the comp is either. Sure a double CD set will have more hits (and a higher price) but trust me, they'll still leave something off. Labels do this for profits at the expense of product quality. I think that is shortsighted, quality, well conceived products will sell and those increased sales will allow companies to make up the profits they hope to obtain by leaving stuff off.
Running Order: Comps are sometimes hard for an intense music fan to listen to because the running order is all wrong. A strict chronological order is my preference but there is something to be said for taking all the songs and creating a new running order. There are drawbacks to both methods even when done right and often times they are not done right. A chronological runnning order in more exhaustive comps may leave some dry parts where the listener didn't like the artist's output during that time period (and may have been a real dry spell). Changing the running order is even more jarring as you might go from an early 80s song to one from the 60s. Big adjustment. It can be done right but it is challenging.
New Songs: A huge pet peeve of mine is putting new songs on a comp. They just shouldn't be there. Its wasted room (most comps now go for an hour right up to the CD maximum, I'll give the labels credit for that) and the new songs almost certainly won't be nearly as good as the best stuff (usually one of the new songs will deserve to be on there to be honest but it should also be on the next album). It forces the diehard fan to buy something they wouldn't have needed otherwise (as they'll have all the albums the other songs came from) and they interrupt the flow of goodness on the CD (unless they're bunched at the end) as you go from classic to thrown together in a day song to sell these comps to diehards. BTW: I'm not counting rareties in box sets. Those are expected and (again to the labels' credit) I've seen more than one instaance where the rareties appear on their own disc after a period of time.
Hope you enjoyed the rant.
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