4.12.2005

Hit Me Baby One More Time

So Britney Spears is pregnant. That's not a big surprise, but it did get me thinking about greatest hits albums. This chick is all of 23 and apparently her career has been so inspiring and prolific that it already warrants a greatest hits album. I'd be loathe to label any of her songs "greatest" let alone "hits" but Britney's too easy to pick on so I'll move along.

Doesn't it seem like greatest hits albums are coming out sooner for bands these days? Maybe it's just that I'm getting old enough to have followed a group's entire career but I don't feel that Green Day or Pearl Jam should be putting out retrospectives yet. And what's so good about Collective Soul that they needed to release a greatest hits in 2001? I know all this filler is mostly to fulfill record contracts but it's also another sign of the death of the album as a viable musical format.

1 comment:

Shawn said...

It's just plain math... figure most CDs have a couple of really good songs, a few okay ones and one or two completely suck-ass ones that you always skip over. That means you should have at least six albums out before you do a Greatest Hits album...

Or... if (1) you were a pretty good band and (2) you had a few cool albums and (3) your lead singer ends up dying in a tragic, yet original, way... then you may be entitled to a Greatest Hits collection.