A Plethora of Greatest Hits

I’ve had Rush on the mind since I posted on them a week ago. Yesterday I was in B&N browsing through the CDs, hoping to possibly purchase an oldie I hadn’t listened to in a few years. (Most of my Rush CDs were stolen in 2003; the remaining Rush I have is on cassette tapes, but I don’t have a cassette tape player.)

Six CDs. That’s it for Rush at B&N. Signals, Moving Pictures, one of their 21st century keyboard-fests, and three greatest hits CDs! What? I do a quick lookup on wikipedia when I get home and discover that they have 8 – eight! – greatest hits CDs. I love these guys to death, but c’mon, eight greatest hits CDs seems a little excessive.

With this in my reticular activating system, I browsed around further, amazed at all the greatest hits CDs in the bins. Yes, I understand the economics of it, both from the band’s side as well as the record company’s side. Still, the purist in me buckles. That being said, I’ve often purchased the greatest hits CDs when I was sitting on the fence about a band. But not that often.

I have two pet peeves with the whole greatest hits thing. I don’t know why they’re done, but the cynic inside figgers it’s either to reduce production costs or to spur interest in the band. Most likely the former.

I absolutely cannot stand when a band (or a record company) puts a live track on a greatest hits CD. Save those for the live album, please. And for the life of me I can’t stand when a band puts unreleased material on their “greatest hits” CDs. Sounds rather presumptuous, doesn’t it?

You know, I think I kinda sound like a “get off my lawn you kids!” old ranting gummer here. I really only half-formed these thoughts in the store, focusing mostly on keeping the little ones in visual sight and making sure they’re not wreaking havoc in the aisles. And now, sitting at the keyboard wondering what to write for the Hopper, this all pops into the mind.

Like Inspector Drebbin in front of the exploding fireworks factory, “Move along, now. Nothing to see here. Move along” …