Where did I get all these “Best of” cd’s?

"best of" collections are very nice of you want only the hits of a certain artists,ot want to get to know his music.    you certainly have a pretty large number of them though..

there are some bands/artists i consider as "best of" collections band.  those are bands that have only one or two good songs in each album,so their best album is their best of collection.

I will add another reason I have bought greatest hit comps - the dreaded previously unreleased tracks. Back before downloads, that was an easy way to milk the completist fans. Repackage some hits, then include a new track or two on there, maybe a popular remix, or some well regarded live performance. 

It's good to know you eventually bought albums, though. Some things on the list I understand (WAR, ABBA, Buffalo Springfield, Mamas and the Papas, Etta James), others not so much (Bob Dylan, Roxy Music and Moby have made several discs worth owning, but I'm sure you know that).

But then there are things like Bob Marley's Legend and David Bowie's Changes One, which are so good they do a service to the very idea of "best-ofs". I'd even recommend them to folks who have all the albums. Others I'd put on that list are All Of This and Nothing by the Psychedelic Furs, The Essential Leonard Cohen, Parliament's Greatest Hits: Uncut Funk…The Bomb and Substance by New Order.

I find myself buying more and more of these lately. I'm listening to Carpenters Gold as I type this. It's an easy way catch up on artists you've just discovered or didn't come to appreciate until later in their careers.

Am I the only person who feels most of the Carpenters songs are so incredibly sad?  Whenever I hear "Superstar" I'm moved to tears.  Karen's voice is sweet and haunting.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Uthadude 

Out of the piles of cd's I have I realize I don't have a single one by R.E.M. Where do you start?

You could start with "Eponymous" which is... a collection of singles from their first five albums.  :)

Eponymous was where I first started listening to R.E.M.

Unfortunately their early albums aren't mastered very well.  Light on the bass and treble can be piercing.  MFSL did remasters of their first two albums "Murmur" and "Reckoning".  The MFSL remasters are good.  Balanced sound.  There is actually bass, treble is much more reasonable, overall an amazing improvement.  If you get the R.E.M. bug the MFSL masters are worth it.

I like to use some of the songs from Eponymous as a quickie headphone test.  If the headphone is thin on bass you will notice it quickly.  If a headphone has good bass extension you'll know as well.  My D2000 do well.  My RS325is let me know that they're rolling off in the bass too soon.  If you need a D2000 just to notice that there is bass in the music then something is wonky with the mastering.  Maybe they were mastered on full range speakers and never tested on speakers that roll off the bass?

Their last two albums "R.E.M. Live" and "Accelerate" are victims of the loudness war.  Avoid them.  Sonic garbage.

dude.  i totally get it.

i mean, how else are you gonna get survivor's "eye of the tiger", right? 

I know after my cd collection was ripped off a few times I ended up buying a lot of best of cds. Just didnt make sense to buy all the cds for an artist again. The best of cds at least get me the essentials.

After getting what was available at the CBS & BMG CD clubs in the 80s, I started getting the best of from groups just to build variety in my collection. Most of the 60s pop artists in particular weren't worth buying their CDs for one or two songs but you could get their decent songs this way. Owning a CD for collection purposes wasn't my goal. You get the best of CD from an artist and if they were good, you could then start selecting individual CDs. 

i can only really think of a few artists whose hits album i liked, but i didn't like individual records more...

queen, maybe.  i consider them a "singles act".  there's not a single album of theirs that i like all the way through.

it's fun to think back on some of my favorites, having been introduced to them by a cheap hits cd or something of that sort.

blue oyster cult started out as a 9 dollar hits cd.  cuz i just had to have "(don't fear) the reaper."  hahaha.

and years later i now own every single album and live album officially released by them.  and now i groan every time i hear "reaper" on the radio...

(cuz they're so much better than that one dang song!   )

Normal or not, I happy for you. Lots of great artists there... ^_^

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justin Uthadude 

Out of the piles of cd's I have I realize I don't have a single one by R.E.M. Where do you start?

Well, Eponymous is a good place to start, but I'll tell you…R.E.M. is another of those bands that made a bunch of albums that are worth your hard-earned dosh from start-to-finish. There career does break neatly into two parts, though, and I'm partial to the first half, which ended with Document, easily one of the finest rock albums of the '80s. (Place to start?) I don't share Ham Sandwich's fidelity issues with the early stuff, but probably 'cause I got on board when it was brand-spanking new and fresh. They didn't sound like anybody else, and uniqueness was what you were paying for…at least, that's what I was paying for.