Greatest Hits/ Boxed Sets

Hey guys, IMO greatest hits and boxed sets STINK. How can you appreciate an artists music if you are only taking samplings from thier work. They are totally wrong, and I only have ONE greatest hits album in my whole collection...I bought it because it was a great price, Zeppelin...well, some people argue that if you know all of the songs, you can buy the greatest hits just to skip right into the hits! Well, I disagree with this too. And another thing, a lot of times they put a lot of BS in those boxed sets dammit. But what do YOU think!?

I personally don't like greatest hits albums, but if you own all of the albums of one artist, I see no problem with just having one neat compilation of the 'hits'. I never buy Greatest Hits albums, but I can see why some people would.

I have a rule of thumb here:

Only get a 'rare' boxed set if you know the band good enough.

I think a greatest hits-type thing is a good way to get into a band, only if you follow up that purchase with one of their real albums.

I think it depends on the artist and the compilation, you just can't make a sweeping judgement like that. For example...

Clapton's Crossroads 4 CD set. Didn't even begin to scratch the surface of an outstanding career. A good place to start for a Clapton rookie.

Jimmy Buffets : Boats, Beaches, Bars, Balads: A great retrospective of an artist work. Jimmy writes "One shot" songs, he doesn't do "Concept albums", consequently this format works for him.

Echoes ; Pink Floyd....Not even close, As we all know PF albums are complete works in and of themselves.

Electric Light Orchestra : Flashback... again like Buffet this works for a band that produced a string of hits. No loss of concept, why? No concept ot loose.. great set.

Zeppelin boxed set, (4CD).. maybe if it was 8 CD's they might capture the grandure that is (was) Zeppelin, Couldn't do the band justice.

Beatles Anthology I, II, III (6 CD's total), as a set, not quite there, but combine with the 2 CD set of "Beatles Live at the BBC" and you have a great histoty of a history making band.

I would not be as quick to condem the sets as you my friend....

Anthology was not a greatest hits compilation.

Hair spliting....

Really, rarities and some early live outtakes. I think a lot of people bought Anthology through the hype that took place back in 1995/96, expecting a greatest-hits type thing.

Unfortunately, they got an album full of songs they'd never heard before, at least not in the condition they were in on Anthology.

Poor buggers.

a boxed set is cool if it is like a live compilation or something like the nuggets box sets. if it were a band i liked it would have to have rare stuff in it.

Greatest Hits/compilation albums can be very good, depending on the band.

My Eagles(The Very Best Of)/Queen(Greatest Hits I & II) albums are the ones i go for first when i want to listen to those bands as they have the best (mostly) work of those bands.

Echoes provided me with my first exposure to the Floyd that i liked, a few years ago (i think when i was 12/13, i am now 17) a friend told me they thought id like PF but when i listened to them i thought they were shit (the concepts were too advanced and not enough lyrics for me at that time). So now i have Echoes and eight( Floyd albums (plus RW and DG solo albums) on my music shelves.

In conclusion: Greatest Hits albums work for some bands and not for others, though despite what people say about echoes, i think it also works for the Floyd, it just wasnt long enough, 15 disc wud have been better

VV

Really

Box sets rock .... Have the Beatles one and a Led Zep one, way cool. I'm all for that stuff.

What's wrong with greatest hits (okay doesn't work for the Floyd, as some one above said the albums are an entity), but if you like a band why not grab the Greatest Hits rather than finding each individual CD, some of which are no longer available.... and lets face facts here, some music isn't worth buying the original concept CD....

One can only hope there's a Partridge family boxed set on it's way...

i guess it really depends on how much you like the band. If you really dig most of their songs, then i think you'll most probably not be dissapointed with a box set. Then again, the best trick to deciding wether or not you like it and want to buy it is to actually read the back of the box (you know, where it tells you what tracks are contained on the album) and if you dont like a vast majority, then dont buy it. Simple.

The way I look at it is that each greatest hits album is gonna have at least two or three of the band/artist's good tracks that will give a good reflection (assuming of course the band/artist is any good in the first place). Therefore as Shane said they are a good way of sampling a band to see if you want to here more. I personally have loads of greatest hits albums for bands that I hadn't heard much of beforehand.
Another thing is that it is most likely that if you buy a greatest hits album then you will no at least one song, if not its probably been a recommendation, in which case it must be a reasonable reflection otherwise you would have been recommended an ordinary album.
Anyways thats my opinion for what its worth.

P.S. I am not after a valuation on my opinion