Aug 12
AndrewMusic Albums, Greatest Hits
Um, that pretty much says it all.
Apparently to prove that New Kids on the Block was more than just a fad, their Greatest Hits set includes 3 tracks recorded solo by the band members. The best of the bunch, assuming you’re not the nostalgic type is Joey McIntyre’s Stay the Same with its 98 Degrees vibe and random falsetto injections.
But even if you are the nostalgic type and can’t wait to relive the glories of Hangin’ Tough and You Got It (The Right Stuff) the disc also comes packaged with some truly abysmal tracks the likes of Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind) and Games (The Kids Get Hard Mix). Really. A dance remix with rap vocals. Marky Mark did it better.
So enjoy Please Don’t Go Girl and I’ll Be Loving You Forever. Far be it for me to disparage the boy band icons for their actual hits. But the rest of this collection sucks. New single Summertime is mercifully absent, but in case you didn’t get enough New Kids after 17 tracks, a 5 minute megamix is tacked on to the end of the album.
Oct 01
AndrewMusic Album, Greatest Hits, MB20
New tunes from Matchbox Twenty will be part of a two-disc package Exile on Mainstream due out tomorrow. The set, preceded by the single How Far We’ve Come, features the band’s hits on one disc and new songs on the other.
Overall, the vibe of the new material is decidedly positive. Surprising given some of the darker themes and moody vibe of their preceding albums, casual fans not recognize the more relaxed Matchbox Twenty. Even though the lyrics of How Far We’ve Come are reminiscent of earlier songs, the energy is very different, downright upbeat.
The trend continues on tracks I’ll Believe You When and Can’t Let You Go. Of the new tracks, only These Hard Times seems to fit in with older tracks like Bent and Unwell.
It’s hard to argue that a the new shiny, happy Matchbox Twenty is a bad thing. The new material is a solid return for the band, however brief the reunion may end up being. The band has lined up a number of television promotional appearances over the next week including a October 4 appearance on The Tonight Show.
Matchbox Twenty played their first live date on Saturday in Boston, MA as part of MixFest 2007. They played an hour long set that featured three new tracks How Far We’ve Come, These Hard Times and I’ll Believe You When as well as a run through of their best known tracks. They also have a date scheduled at the Wiltern in Los Angeles, CA on October 26 for the 3rd Annual Lounge for Life concert.
Dec 20
AndrewMusic Albums, Box Set, Greatest Hits
Is the record label to blame for breeding greatest hits albums one after another like salmon? Can we blame the artists for sanctioning such recklessness, or welcome the chance to reap recycled and remastered music in a constant stream of greatest hits collections?
U2 gave us two greatest hits albums, dividing their career by decade -- The Best of 1980-1990 and The Best of 1990-2000 if you are keeping track, and recently released U218 with only one new studio album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, in between.
Fans, more so than I did, raised a stink because U218 is not much more than a glossy smush of the two, with a few tracks culled from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and the new collaboration with Green Day, Saints Are Coming. Distinguishing U218 as career-spanning is great and all, but the truth is, neither the band nor the consumer have really benefitted all that much from the new compilation.
Sometimes the second greatest hits release is the record companies attempt to capitalize on a resurgence of the band’s popularity. Depeche Mode graced us with another greatest hits album on the heels of their best album in years and years and years, Playing the Angel. But it wasn’t that many albums ago that we were digesting Singles 86>98 and Singles 81>85. Did they really spawn that many singles off of 2001′s Exciter and 2005′s Playing the Angel? Well, actually…yes, 8 if you are counting. Thing is, most of those songs aren’t on the new Best Of.
Johnny Cash’s career had a massive revival before his death in 2003. And along with new recordings of music he was making during his final years, we also have a slew of hits collections that run the gamut from career-spanning to the songs-Americans-know to cram-as-many-songs- by-Johnny-Cash- on-to-one-album-as-possible. The choices are endless but, aside from the novelty itself of compiling tracks in different combinations, indistinguishable.
Greatest Hits albums are often culminations of a record contract. On the heels of a greatest hits album that could only loosely be described as a greatest hits album, Tori Amos released a box set with a lot of overlap. Tales of a Librarian was the completion of Tori’s contract with Atlantic. The box set, a hefty stew of unreleased tracks and alternate mixes packaged with some remastered best-of songs, is much more a collectible item than her greatest hits album is a collection of her biggest hits. The first was a contractual obligation, and the second was a gift to the fans. But we didn’t really need both because the releases arrived at the same result.
But sometimes, greatest hits are just the record company trying to cash in on the artist’s portfolio without rhyme, reason, or anything new to offer. This especially true the more time has passed. The list is endless. ABBA, The Who, anything in the 20th Century Masters series… With washed up acts, it is more understandable. Michael Jackson, Culture Club, and Alice in Chains continue to box up various song collections just to keep product on the shelves. If they aren’t recording new music anyway, there is no point in quibbling over one version of a hits album or another -- except we invariably end up owning all of them.
Real greatest hits serve an important function. They can wrap up an era for an artist, or introduce new fans to a band. But these round two editions of greatest hits more often than not seem little more than an attempt by the record company to take advantage of the music consumer. The thing is, we keep buying, and that perpetuates and endless cycle of new hits packages. So maybe we are as much to blame as anybody. All I know is that lately, my greatest hits albums are multiplying at a frenetic pace.
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