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Greatest Hits Album
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Not all of them are this blatant about it.

"Greatest hits albums are for housewives and little girls."

A specific type of Compilation Album (also known as a "Best of" Album), the Greatest Hits Album consists of earlier hit singles or other successful, previously released songs by a particular music artist or band. It's generally a great way for an artist to make a bunch of money without having to do any actual new work. It is also a great way for a record label to get a new album from an artist who has left that label or is trying to do so ASAP.

To increase the possible appeal of the album, especially to people who already own the bulk of the artist's work (and thus likely to both be the biggest fans and already own all the hits), it's not uncommon to include remixes, alternate takes, live versions of popular songs, stand-alone singles that haven't yet appeared on an album (or, in the case of movie theme songs, only on a soundtrack album), and/or even a completely new song or two (which will, inevitably, be released as a single in order to promote the collection, and may or may not become a hit in its own right). Of course, all of this is likely to piss off the completists, who might find themselves being forced to pay full album price for just one or two songs (although the rise of digital music distribution has mollified this problem to a certain extent). However, Greatest Hits Albums are good purchases for casual fans of artists they otherwise have no urge to buy complete albums of.

The very concept of the Greatest Hits Album is a double-edged sword, however; while such an album is likely to contain the most commercially successful of the artist's songs, it's pretty much a given that there will be at least a few critic- and/or fan-favorite B-sides and Album Filler tracks that won't appear on the disc (and thus greater resentment against the Black Sheep Hit that will inevitably be included). In hoping to appeal to the greatest number of fans, the album will end up completely pleasing no one. And at the other end of the spectrum, most bands and artists suffering from Second Album Syndrome don't have enough hits in the can to truly justify an entire album thereof, and it may seem like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel as to what may qualify as a "hit".

Artists are of mixed feelings about these albums as well. Many artists resist releasing one for fear that once they do, their regular albums will begin to be ignored. (Joni Mitchell refused to allow compilation albums of her work for many years for this very reason.) Yet they are viewed as a necessary evil, as these provide an easy starting point for new fans who are curious about a particular artist's work but can't afford to purchase that artist's entire recorded output (which, in some cases, can be extensive) up front. Popular music was mainly singles-oriented until after the mid-1960s, and non-album singles were still common in Britain for longer than they were in the U.S. through the 1980s, with many of these singles only getting a stateside release on compilations. Musicians and bands don't always get to decide when to release a Greatest Hits Album. A label that acquires another artist's back catalog will often issue a new compilation to drum up sales, or to kick off a reissue/remastering campaign. If an artist is leaving the label and does not own his own back catalog, and if he is successful at all, the label will release a Greatest Hits Album — sometimes explicitly against the artist's wishes.

Sometimes the "Best of" title is used instead. This often reflects a less concentrated focus on chart hits — sometimes for legitimate reasons (e.g., album-oriented artists, influential artists with less commercial success or simply those whose career may not be best reflected solely by singles). Or it could be a poor excuse to cover up a lack of genuine hits. Sometimes neither title is used (e.g. Dire Straits' compilation Money for Nothing). To add perceived weight a more scholarly phrase such as "Anthology" is often used. This can be justified where the artist has had a long career but is equally often just a pretentious affectation.

If the artist's output has been released on more than one record label, any "Best Of..." LP will invariably only contain the best of whatever the artiste has recorded on that particular label, unless they managed to license tracks from another label. Therefore any truly definitive "Best Of..." LP is unlikely to appear, for copyright and royalties reasons, unless the artist's full backlog manages to move under a single party's control (whether it be their current label or themselves).

As suggested by The Brunching Shuttlecocks, an easy way to determine the actual necessity of a Greatest Hits Album is to divide the number of songs on the album that actually charted, by the number of songs included on the album. Artists like The Beatles, Billy Joel, Madonna and The Beach Boys will bat nearly 1.000, whereas groups who have released Greatest Hits albums unneccesarily (i.e., One Hit Wonders) will score far lower (e.g,: Kajagoogoo has hit ratio on its greatest hits album of 0.059, Timbuk 3 has 0.071, The Best of Tiffany scores 0.083, The Best of Martika 0.067 and so on.) The most egregious example may be The Best of Shaquille O'Neal, which has 12 songs, none of which could legitimately be considered a hit, for a ratio of zero.

Despite the rise of digital music distribution largely making compilation albums obsolete, the trend has gotten worse over time. It used to be a general rule that an artist would have around four albums and/or ten years worth of material before they would release a compilation but this is no longer the case. Now "best of" albums can be released after two or even a single album. There is also a trend towards releasing multiple best of albums, often with only a single original album in between releases. Some artists or record companies will even release a repackaged best of album as the follow up to the previous best of album without any original material being released in the interim. The "vinyl revival" of the 21st century has also revived the popularity of compilation albums, as they're among the best-selling vinyl albums and remain mainstays of Billboard's catalog chart.

The ordering of songs can be either random or chronological (though for double-disc compilations, it can get experimental).

A variation is a compilation of various artists by time period, genre, style or any combination of criteria. So you get albums with titles like Best Rock Ballads Ever, Biggest Hits of 2004, Best of the Sixties etc. Due to licensing issues, these can often omit iconic songs and/or artists. For example, Sixties compilation albums won't include anything by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or Elvis Presley (who was still popular in that decade despite his focus on moviemaking), which will make an album called Best of the Sixties a bit of letdown when it doesn't include anything by three of the decade's biggest artists.


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    Legendary compilation albums full of greatest hits that have their own TV tropes page: 

Other Examples:

    Artists A–C 
  • ABBA:
    • ABBA Gold is the third best selling album of all time in Britain.
    • Their first UK Greatest Hits album actually served as an introduction to the group for British audience - with only a few exceptions, the songs hadn't been hits in the UK (in fact, many hadn't been released there at all) but had been hits in Sweden and other countries. So the title wasn't strictly a lie...
    • ABBA Gold was largely been supplanted by 2001's The Definitive Collection, which included all of their singles in chronological order. This was also later supplanted by the now-definitive The Essential Collection from 2012, which adds four additional songs. And yet, ABBA Gold is still in print and is still selling, in part because it's available at a cheaper price point than the 2 CD singles collection.
  • Adam and the Ants' Antmusic: The Very Best of Adam Ant, The Very Best of Adam and the Ants, and Dandy Highwaymen (The Best of..).
  • Aerosmith has released nine so far. Two were released by the recording companies after the band was out (Columbia Records's Gems and Geffen Records's Young Lust).
  • Even doujinshi musicians can get into this too, if they are successful enough. Alstroemeria Records, well known for its remixes of Touhou soundtrack, released EXSERENS (sic) which contains some of their most iconic remixes. This includes "Bad Apple".
  • Asia's Then & Now, released in 1990, was half of a Greatest Hits album and half a studio album full of new songs. Their compilation album Anthology, released in the 1990s, tried to combine the best of the John Wetton lineup songs with the best of the John Payne lineup songs by presenting them in their original versions, but when Wetton's estate refused to allow his versions of the songs to be used in that fashion, John Payne simply did cover versions of the John Wetton lineup songs instead. Anthologia, which covered the entirety of the John Wetton lineup of songs, would be later re-released as Asia: Gold.
  • Ayreon provides a pair of unusual examples:
    • Ayreonauts Only consists near-entirely of alternate versions, with two exceptions - track five was the original demo of "Carpe Diem" note  and the closer was "Cold Metal", from Ambeon, a side-project of Ayreon creator Arjen Anthony Lucassen.
    • 2008 album Timeline, meanwhile, features selected songs from every Ayreon album released up to that point, alongside an additional song titled "Epilogue: The Memory Remains", which serves to wrap up the fates of the Forever and New Migrator. The album also released with a timeline poster illustrating the Ayreon universe and a booklet containing new photos, lyrics, and notes on the story.
  • The Beach Boys have had many of these over the years:
    • The three Best of the Beach Boys volumes of the late 1960s were released by Capitol in response to their decreasing commercial success: Vol. 1 came out a few months after Pet Sounds was released to lower sales than expected, Vol. 2 was hastily assembled after Smile was shelved, and Vol. 3 was made to compensate for the poor sales of Friends.
    • The 1974 double-LP compilation Endless Summer, covering the 1962-65 period, proved a mixed blessing to the group, as while it revived their popularity, it also accelerated their descent from "innovative band" to "oldies act". A followup, Spirit of America, came out the next year and covered the same era, but since the predecessor already included most of their hits, Capitol had to pull out a bunch of deep cuts to pad out the two discs.
    • A 2003 compilation, Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys, proved very popular for a compilation, charting at #16 in the U.S. and receiving double platinum certification. A "companion" volume was released in 2007, The Warmth of the Sun, which included fan favorites left out of Sounds of Summer. Sounds of Summer would later see an expanded three-CD reissue in 2022 to kick off the band's 60th anniversary celebrations.
    • For the more hardcore fans, there was the 1993 Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys boxset, which included a mix of hits, rarities, outtakes and live versions over five discs. A successor, Made in California, came out in 2013 and included its own unique rarities and outtakes among the expected hits, leading to some grumbling from fans about having to rebuy the same old songs again just to get the new stuff.
    • The band's 50th anniversary led to a compilation of 50 songs (including ones from the just released reunion That's Why God Made the Radio) indicatively Fifty Big Ones, punning on the studio album made on the band's 15th anniversary, 15 Big Ones.
  • The Beatles:
    • As early as 1966, Parlophone Records released one of these: A Collection of Beatles Oldies. In addition, companies in various countries around the world issued their own "best of" collections around the same period.
    • Two self-titled albums were put out by Apple Records in 1973 to counter a bootleg compilation, with one set covering material from 1962 to 1966 and the other covering material from 1967 to 1970. The albums are respectively known among fans as The Red Album and The Blue Album after the borders surrounding the cover photos.
    • 20 Greatest Hits focused on the band's chart-topping songs; the compilation never made it to CD, although the more recent 1 is basically an expanded version of it.
    • 1980 saw the release of The Beatles Box, a Boxed Set compiling eight newly-compiled LPs, giving it twice the scope of the Red and Blue sets combined, expanding on the "best of" concept to include all the "better" songs from their albums, as well as bona-fide hits — along the way the set included some "odd versions" of songs, like the US-stereo version of "I'm Looking Through You" with extra opening notes, plus "Penny Lane" featuring the 7-note trumpet coda in a stereo version, and a composite version of "I Am the Walrus", both of which Capitol in the US had created earlier that year for their US version of Rarities.
    • 2000's 1 was the best selling album of The Naughties. Every song on it had hit #1 on either the British or the American charts (like 20 Greatest Hits before it).
  • While all the songs on Björk's 2002 "Greatest Hits" compilation were singles, the track listing was voted for by fans and omitted (amongst others) what was possibly her best-selling — and probably best-known — single in several countries, "It's Oh So Quiet", which was kept off due to it being a Cover Version rather than an original piece.
  • Black Sabbath have had several, many of them with nearly-identical tracklists. Most compilations cover the Ozzy era, from 1970-78, with The Dio Years covering the Dio era, with three new songs recorded specifically for the compilation. The super-obscure Sabbath Stones covers the Ian Gillan, and Tony Martin era, but it wasn't released in North America. No tracks from The Seventh Star are on any Sabbath compilations, because it was a de facto Tony Iommi solo project and was only labeled a Black Sabbath album because the record label insisted upon it.
    • After Ozzy became a TV star and the band's profile was raised the Greatest Hits starting coming out every other year before switching to an annual schedule. In 2002 they released Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath 1970–1978, a two-disc set that was the first band sanctioned release of the Ozzy era. It was notable for having brand new remasters, which came from the sessions that resulted in The Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970–1978), a box set of all eight albums released two years later. And two years after that came Greatest Hits 1970–1978, which is essentially the two-disc set condensed down into one disc. Then three years later they released Greatest Hits, which was almost identical to the previous collection. And finally, in 2012 they released Iron Man: The Best of Black Sabbath which is identical to the previous collection. And that's just the Ozzy era. In 2007 there was a one-disc Greatest Hits collecting Dio era tunes and in 2008 there was a boxset containing all four albums. Between 2002 and 2009 there was a compilation released every year save for 2003 and 2005.
  • David Bowie had many compilations assembled over the course of his career, partially because he label-hopped a fair deal early on and those ex-labels reassembled what they had once his career took off. As for Bowie-supervised anthologies:
    • Changesonebowie (1976) and Changestwobowie (1981) were the first compilations that brought together his career-making hits. When a rerelease program of Bowie's 1969-80 catalog was initiated by Rykodisc in 1990, Changesbowie — the cover of which incorporated the Changesonebowie cover photo — arrived. This compilation combined tracks from Changesonebowie and Changestwobowie, also including EMI America Records-era songs from 1983's Let's Dance and 1984's Tonight. Additionally, instead of "Fame" (his first U.S. Number One), the then-new rearrangement "Fame '90" was substituted. The remix was not well received, and it was replaced by the original when Changesbowie was reissued in 1996.
    • The 1989 Boxed Set Sound + Vision covered 1969-1980 with a focus on deeper cuts and originally included a Video CD (later CD-ROM) of three live numbers and the "Ashes to Ashes" video on top of three audio CDs. A 2003 reissue turned it into a four-CD set with material from 1982-93 and a 1997 live B-side added.
    • 1993's The Singles Collection wasn't exactly truth in advertising — a bunch of the included songs weren't singles or, if they were, the actual single edits.
    • Three best-ofs available separately or as The Platinum Collection specifically focus on 1969-74 (mostly Glam Rock), 1974-79 (blue-eyed Soul and Krautrock), and 1980-87 (New Wave Music, pop rock, and soundtracks). The last one is notable for bringing together single versions of his movie theme songs from this period, which at five outpace the number of included tracks from his studio albums Tonight and Never Let Me Down (four).
    • 2002's Best of Bowie had 20 different versions prepared for 21 different countries based on which songs were most successful in them (the inlay includes a flag under the disc tray's spine to indicate which regional version a given copy is), plus a two-disc DVD set released alongside it.
    • 2008's iSelect, which is unique in that it features a tracklist selected by Bowie himself, and is a collection of his personal favorites of his own songs. It includes only one of his big hits, "Life on Mars?", and has a special, exclusive version of "Time Will Crawl" with a newly recorded backing track. This track would become even more notable in 2018 for serving as the starting point for Never Let Me Down 2018.
    • 2014's 3-disc Nothing Has Changed presents its songs in reverse chronological order, starting with the new single "Sue (or In a Season of Crime)" (later re-recorded for ) and working all the way back to his first single, 1964's "Liza Jane", making this the first Bowie-assembled compilation to include pre-Space Oddity material. Along the way, remixes, single edits, and other rarities pop up, including three selections from his then-unreleased album Toy. A 2-disc version, with its tracklist in regular chronological order, is also available
    • 2016's Bowie Legacy, which largely repeats the tracklist of the 2-disc version of Nothing Has Changed, only adding on a couple alternate single edits, a single from Heathen, and two songs from his final album, .
  • Kate Bush released exactly one of these: 1986's The Whole Story, her last album to be released in the US by EMI America Records, moving over to Columbia Records for The Sensual World three years later (in her native UK, meanwhile, she'd stay with EMI until their dissolution in 2012). The compilation includes two new tracks: a re-recording of "Wuthering Heights" and the fully original "Experiment IV", which was released as a single to promote the album.
  • Famed J-rock duo B'z is a interesting case: They had released several "compilations" albums that, in practice, are like Greatest Hits albums since they compiled all their singles... but still hadn't released any official Greatest Hits Albums yet. To muddle the waters more, some of those compilations feature re-recordings of two of their signature songs, actualized for the year of release.
  • Camper Van Beethoven have Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty, which covers their career up until their initial breakup in 1990 (meaning nothing was included from New Roman Times, which was their newest album at the time, or their Cover Album of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk). The band couldn't license anything from Key Lime Pie and Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, the two albums they released while on Virgin, so the album uses brand new re-recordings of four of it's songs.
  • Mary Chapin Carpenter mixed hers up; Party Doll is a mix of live hits, studio versions, and a few of her personal favorites.
  • Comedian/singers Rodney Carrington and Tim Wilson both have a "Greatest Hits" album. Both men have only two chart singles to their credit each, with nothing higher than #60.
  • Cascada have released three best of albums over the course of three years. Due to their lack of singles, the same ten tracks have been included on all three. Although this is somewhat justified as the second disc of Original Me was exclusive to the UK. However, both Back On The Dancefloor and The Best Of Cascada were exclusive to Germany, despite having near identical tracklisting (even the order of tracks is suspiciously similar).
  • Johnny Cash had a career spanning several decades and numerous greatest-hits compilations. These include the themed collection (with songs chosen by Johnny himself) Love, Murder, and God. Johnny also had a 1963 album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash, which wasn't a proper greatest hits album. It was a collection of singles and EP tracks which hadn't appeared on any albums before. The best known compilations are a pair from the 2000s: 2002's triple-platinum two-disc The Essential Johnny Cash and 2005's double-platinum one-disc career overview The Legend of Johnny Cash.
  • Cirque du Soleil has released four such albums so far.
    • Cirque du Soleil Collection (1996) covered Le Cirque Réinventé through Alegría.
    • Le Best of... (2004), a tie-in to the company's 20th anniversary, was an update of the previous album that dropped all the songs from shows that had closed and added ones from those that had since opened, up through Varekai.
    • 25 (2009) tied into the company's 25th anniversary and featured a fresh tracklist over two CDs. With the exceptions of Pomp Duck and Circumstance (which Cirque only co-produced, rather than created in-house) and the unique case of LOVE, every live show through OVO was represented, even those that didn't yet have soundtrack albums (Criss Angel BeLIEve, ZED, and OVO). The earliest shows' songs hadn't appeared on CD until this album.
    • Le Best of...2 (2012) followed on from the 2004 collection by catching up with most of the shows from Zumanity onwards.
  • The Corrs have three and a complete collection Boxed Set of all 5 albums which released in 2011. Although once you start adding the high quality live albums and unplugged albums which have their own specific songs it looks far more reasonable. A buyer also gets more value for money from each subsequent release. The first was made after their 3rd album was released and has 18 songs. The second Dreams contained 21 songs and was released after their 4th and 5th albums were released as well as several unplugged and live albums. The Works was released as a three CD set with 56 tracks.
  • Elvis Costello has The Best Of Elvis Costello And The Attractions from 1985, the double Girls Girls Girls in 1987, Rykodisc's The Very Best Of Elvis Costello And The Attractions double-disc from 1994, Extreme Honey in 1997 (which compiles his Warner (Bros.) Records years (1989-94)), The Very Best Of Elvis Costello (double-disc, 2001), Rock & Roll Music (2007), The Best Of Elvis Costello: The First Ten Years (2007), and Pomp And Pout (chronicling his stint on Universal Records ((1998-2008))). Not to mention the rarities compilations Taking Liberties (aka 10 Bloody Marys And Ten How's Yer Fathers in the UK) and Out Of Our Idiot, the boxed set 2 1/2 Years, featuring his first three studio albums and a rare live 1979 recording, and three recent boxed sets of his singles.
  • Counting Crows' Films About Ghosts, which spanned the large gap between the release of Hard Candy and Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings.
  • Doc Cox, as Ivor Biggun, has released two 2-CD compilation albums which together contained every song he's ever released on CD as well as live performances of his favorite. The first album was entitled The Fruity Bits of Ivor Biggun but included three alternate covers with cover art that represented the name: The Breast of Ivor Biggun, The Beast of Ivor Biggun, and The Wurst of Ivor Biggun. The second compilation was simply titled More Fruity Bits! The Rest of Ivor Biggun.
  • Cracker had the two-disc Garage D'or — the first disc had most of their singles, while the second was b-sides, compilation tracks, and unreleased material, rounded out with live versions of a few fan favorites. Later on there would also be an unusual case of dueling Greatest Hits albums: The band had recorded Greatest Hits Redux, an album of studio re-recordings of their hits that they planned to release on an independent label, then they found out about Virgin, their old label, planning to release Get On With It: The Best Of Cracker without their involvement. They brazenly put the re-recorded versions out earlier than planned to compete with the regular greatest hits album.
  • Creedence Clearwater Revival released two compilation albums in the late 70's after the band broke up, Chronicle (which was re-released in the early 90's) that contained all their big hits like Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Down on the Corner, etc., and Chronicle II, which contained a lot of lesser known hits from the end of their career.
  • The 1974 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album So Far consists of songs from the two studio LP's they'd recorded to that point (1969's Crosby, Stills & Nash and 1970's Déjà Vu), plus the breakout single Ohio and its B-side Find the Cost of Freedom. Sounds like a totally unnecessary endeavor, right? But it bats a respectable .454 on the Brunching Shuttlecocks metric (5 of the 11 songs on it hit the top 40), and fans were so eager for CSNY that So Far reached #1 on the charts and sold its way into Gold Record status.
  • Sheryl Crow has two: The Very Best of Sheryl Crow, featuring her cover of "The First Cut is the Deepest" as a new track in both pop/rock and country versions, and Hits and Rarities, a two-disc compilation that is a slightly updated version of the former featuring newer tracks and a few older songs that were eliminated from the previous compilation, as well as a disc of live tracks and B-sides.
  • The Cult have two official best of albums, Pure Cult and High Octane Cult, but both are pretty much identical in terms of song selection. The only difference is that High Octane Cult adds two new songs and "Star", the only single they'd released in the three years between the two compilations. "Star" would later show up on a re-release of Pure Cult, but those two new tracks wouldn't.
  • Curve ended their career with The Way Of Curve, a two-disc set (one disc of greatest hits, one disc of rarities) limited to 10,000 copies.

    Artists D–F 
  • Daughtry released a greatest hits album in 2016 titled It's Not Over... The Hits So Far.
  • Dave Matthews Band's The Best of What's Around consists of fan-chosen songs, with a disc of live tracks as a nod to their many fans who follow them around on tour, including a live version of arguably their most popular song "Ants Marching."
  • Devo released two compilations at the same tine: Devo's Greatest Hits (a compilation of their better-known works) and Devo's Greatest Misses (a compilation of their weirder stuff, much of which was otherwise out of print at the time).
  • Progressive metal band Dream Theater released a compilation to satisfy a contract with their now former label. Since the band only had one radio hit (the rock radio favorite "Pull Me Under") and have built their career without 'hit singles', the album is jokingly titled Dream Theater's Greatest Hit (and 21 other pretty cool songs).
  • The Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) is the best-selling album in U.S. history and the second best-selling album in the world,note  having claimed both titles in 2018. Their Greatest Hits was actually the best-selling album in America just shortly after its release, and held onto the title for nearly three decades; the only reason it temporarily lost the title in 2009 was because Michael Jackson died. And the compilation precedes the band's Signature Song "Hotel California"!
  • Eminem released Curtain Call: The Hits in 2005, containing hits from 1999-2004 and three new songs. Eminem intended it to be the Grand Finale for his career, owed to an addiction-fueled Creator Breakdown leaving him uncertain about his future.
  • Faith No More had a few after the band split, with the most recent, done to promote their reunion, mixing all names used for such compilations for parody's sake: The Very Best Definitive Ultimate Greatest Hits Collection.
  • Fall Out Boy has two. Believers Never Die: Greatest Hits, and includes most (if not all) of their singles and popular songs from before their 2010 hiatus, along with their cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It". In 2019 they released a second album titled Greates Hits: Believers Never Die which includes the singles released from the end of the hiatus in 2013 through 2019, with a handful of new or non-album tracks.
  • Despite only having two studio albums, Frankie Goes to Hollywood have a few greatest hits collections:
    • Bang!... The Greatest Hits Of Frankie Goes To Hollywood (1993) composes of all the singles with a few album tracks mixed in (it was promoted with a successful re-release of "Relax", which backfired due to said compilation including a unreleased alternative mix).
    • Maximum Joy (2000) focuses on the album versions of the band's songs, with a disc composing of new trance remixes.
    • Frankie Says Greatest (2009) was released with Universal Music Group, and has a heavy focus on the hits (one version includes a extra disc with 12" mixes and rare tracks, and another is a 2LP set with a lot of remixes).
    • Frankie Said (2012) is a "Compact Introduction" to the group, with a mix of album tracks and rare mixes.
    • The Best Of (2013) is budget-oriented, with a regular "Frankie's best" tracklisting on disc 1 and a few 12" mixesnote  on Disc 2.
    • Simply (2015) is a budget-oriented compilation, focusing on content from the Salvo-era FGTH releases.

    Artists G–J 
  • Peter Gabriel had a few:
    • First there was Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats in 1990 (the title of which riffs on the cash-grab nature of greatest hits albums), a career-spanning set which featured a remix of the Youssou N'Dour collaboration "Shaking the Tree" and a piano re-recording of "Here Comes the Flood", based on the version from Robert Fripp's Exposure.
    • In 1992, Gabriel's old North American label, Atlantic Records, released Peter Gabriel Revisited to capitalize on the release of Us that year. The compilation centers on songs from Gabriel's first two albums, Car and Scratch, both of which Atlantic owned the rights to in the US and Canada (Atlantic's parent company used to own Gabriel's second North American label, Geffen Records, but MCA bought the latter out in 1990).
    • 2003 saw the release of Hit, another career-spanning compilation that combined a standard hits collection with Miss, a second disc featuring fan-favorite deep cuts; the tracklist for Miss was altered for the US release. The first disc additionally included a remix of "Burn You Up, Burn You Down", a song that was included on promotional copies of Up but omitted from the final tracklist.
  • Garbage had two, Absolute Garbage, which had a new track but ignored quite a few latter-day singles (two were in the deluxe edition's disc of remixes), and the Australia-only The Absolute Collection, which brought back two of those passed over singles and added two songs from the album released between compilations.
  • Debbie Gibson put out a Greatest Hits album in 1995, covering most of her singles from her Teen Pop years and only a cursory glance at material from 1990 onward, plus a couple extra 12" mixes for good measure. Notably, it was the last release before spending the next decade recording and performing as Deborah Gibson.
  • J-pop group Glay, after two Best Of albums (one of them double!), released a two-volume, two-disc-each compilation titled rare collectives compiling all the B-sides of their singles to date (most of which hadn't made into any album), plus some live recordings and a couple of version and collaborations with other artists.
  • The Grateful Dead have five: 1974's contract satisfying Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of the Grateful Dead (which remains their best selling album), the hard-to-find 1977 2-disc What A Long Strange Trip It's Been, 1996's The Arista Years (which includes music they made after the material included on Skeletons from the Closet), the career spanning 2003 release The Very Best of the Grateful Dead and the 2015 2-CD set The Best of the Grateful Dead which replaces the 2003 set.
  • Green Day:
    • International Superhits covered their singles from 1994 to 2000 — presumably their two pre-major label albums weren't counted because of licensing issues, but those didn't have any proper singles anyway. The album has every song they released as a single during this period in chronological order, and also starts off with a pair of token new songs.
    • In 2017, they released a second hits collection, Greatest Hits: God's Favorite Band. This one also has the songs in chronological order, including a truncated selection of singles that had previously appeared on International Superhits!.
  • Ayumi Hamasaki released her first best album, A Best, only three years after her debut, despite only having 3 albums and 7 singles. There are rumors about she refusing to do it because she saw that it was the subtle way of her record company to say that this was the end of her Idol Singer career; when the thing seemed inevitable she acceded, but only if they let her re-record her first couple of singles because her voice had maturated since she recorded them. Since all the photos on that album depicts her with a tear, it raised Epileptic Trees about what she really thought of the whole thing. Ironically, A Best fired her career further.
  • George Harrison:
    • Capitol Records released The Best of George Harrison in 1976 when he left for his own vanity label, Dark Horse. This compilation contained songs from his days with The Beatles, which annoyed Harrison, since all the other Beatles, Ringo included, had gotten a compilation devoted entirely to their output as solo artists.
    • In 1989, Harrison put out Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989. Unlike The Best of George Harrison, the tracklist for this compilation was curated by Harrison himself, tossing in the newly-recorded tracks "Poor Little Girl" and "Cockamamie Business" for good measure.
    • Capitol would release the career-spanning "Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison" posthumously in 2009.
  • Several Hello! Project artists. Most of these include at least one new song.
    • Morning Musume had two, as well as a singles collection (even though they're still releasing).
    • Goto Maki.
    • Matsuura Aya.
    • Viyuden, shortly before they broke up.
    • C-ute are about to release one.
    • Berryz Koubou had a best of album and a mini-best.
    • Maeda Yuki is releasing one in September.
    • The Pucchi Best albums are compilations of songs put out each year by the groups.
    • The Mega Bests.
    • Country Musume released two of them.
    • Abe Natsumi.
    • Tanpopo.
    • Pucchimoni.
    • Tsukishima Kirari Starring Kusumi Koharu (Morning Musume).
    • Melon Kinenbi.
  • Johnny Horton's Greatest Hits was the first posthumous record after Horton died at the peak of his fame. As the first album with a lot of his popular singles, combined with Posthumous Popularity Potential, it peaked at #8 on the charts and went platinum.
  • The Human League:
    • The Human League Greatest Hits was released in 1988, partly as a way of recouping the costs of the critical and commercial underperformances of both Hysteria and Crash. Following the band's UK comeback in 1995, Virgin Records reissued the album with a reordered tracklist, adding a Eurodance remix of "Don't You Want Me", the Octopus track "Tell Me When", and the newly-recorded "Stay With Me Tonight" (which was released as a single to promote the compilation); the latter two tracks were licensed from EastWest Records, onto whom the band were signed. This version would be released in the US in 1998 as The Very Best of the Human League. A separate compilation, Soundtrack to a Generation, was also released in continental Europe by Virgin associate Disky Records in 1996 to further cash in on the band's renewed popularity.
    • In 2003, Virgin put out The Very Best of the Human League (unrelated to the identically-named 1998 compilation) to coincide with the remasters of the band's first five albums. This compilation focused mostly on songs from those albums, plus the Romantic? track "Heart Like a Wheel", two songs from Octopus, and the Secrets track "All I Ever Wanted". Some versions also tossed in a bonus CD containing various remixes.
    • In 2016, Virgin released A Very British Synthesizer Group, a two-CD retrospective compilation spanning material from the band's debut single in 1978 to their most recent album in 2011.
  • Starting with 1995's Best of the Beast, Iron Maiden released six, one every three years. They include Somewhere Back in Time, focusing on the 1980's "golden years" — and in the order the songs would be in a live concert's setlist — and From Fear to Eternity, encompassing the albums between 1990 and 2010 (though the Blaze Bayley albums are represented by live versions with Bruce Dickinson). Then there's Edward The Great, which features a full half of Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son album, yet not a single cut with original singer Di'Anno's voice.
  • Michael Jackson had several of these.
    • Motown has released several compilations of his pre-Off The Wall solo tunes over the decades. As they often bear generic titles like The Michael Jackson Anthology, many have probably been confused and/or disappointed to see songs like "Got To Be There" and "Ben" instead of "Beat It" and "Billie Jean".
    • HIStory: Past, Present, and Future -- Book I (1995) drew criticism for the way it was compiled. It was a Distinct Double Album: Disc One featured his Epic Records-era greatest hits up to that point, and Disc Two featured new material. This irked people who wanted one but not both; casual fans (and critics) didn't care about the new material aside from the singles, while hardcore fans already owned all the hits, all of which were the album versions to boot. Disc One was reissued on its own in 2001, but people who want the other tracks (especially the hit singles from the second disc like "You Are Not Alone", "Scream" and "Stranger in Moscow") still have to buy the full two-disc set. The story goes that Sony and Jackson's original plan was just to bring out a greatest hits set with a few new tracks (a project that had been in Development Hell since 1989), but after the first round of child molestation allegations against him he came up with a ton of new material.
    • Number Ones (2003), despite being released solely to fulfill his Sony contract, was his answer to The Beatles and Elvis Presley's all-#1-hits compilations, though the American version had to stretch beyond the U.S. and British charts to include songs from Invincible. It also included a new song in "One More Chance" that flopped in the U.S. as Jackson was formally charged with child molestation just as the album hit shelves; it did make #1 in a few countries, though. The album didn't make waves until the week after Jackson's death, when it outsold the album topping the Billboard 200 (at the time, albums over 18 months old only entered the Catalog Charts; MJ's Posthumous Popularity Potential and the success of the Beatles remasters caused that rule to be dropped).
    • The Ultimate Collection (2004) was a four-disc hits-and-rarities box set, plus a DVD of a 1992 concert.
    • The Essential Michael Jackson (2005), part of Sony Music's Essential series of compilations, was a two-disc set that spanned his entire career: the U.S. version featured ten songs from his Jackson 5/Jacksons days (including early solo work), four Off the Wall songs, seven Thriller songs (the album has nine songs total!), eight Bad songs (out of eleven!), seven Dangerous songs...and one each from HIStory and Invincible. The limited edition's third disc has seven extra songs, four being from the not-so-shiny phase.
  • Japan had three main ones over the years: Assemblage, which collected songs from the band's three-album tenure on Hansa Records, Exorcising Ghosts, which focused on the two albums released under Virgin Records (plus two Hansa-era tracks), and The Very Best of Japan, a career-spanning CD. Hansa also released a number of other compilations throughout the '90s.
  • Jean-Michel Jarre had a whole number of these: The Essential (7" versions from 1976 to 1985), Musik aus Zeit und Raum (pretty much ditto), Images - The Best Of Jean Michel Jarre (partly edited, partly re-recorded, partly remixed live versions from 1976 to 1990 plus a few unreleased tracks and the B-side "Moon Machine"), The Essential Jean Michel Jarre (1976 to 2000, including some not really Greatest Hits, not released by Jarre himself but by Francis Dreyfus), Aero (mostly re-recorded material from 1976 to 1997 + a few new tracks).
  • Jars of Clay's Furthermore was practically a greatest-hits collection, but it was completely new recordings. Disc one featured stripped-down acoustic versions of the songs, and disc two featured live versions. Five years later, they ended up releasing a more conventional Greatest Hits.
  • Jethro Tull have plenty:
    • Living In The Past is a double-album selection of singles, B-sides, outtakes, live tracks from a Carnegie Hall concert, and assorted album tracks. The more conventional M.U.: The Best Of Jethro Tull and Repeat: The Best Of Jethro Tull followed in 1974 and 1977 respectively. A limitation of the genre was demonstrated when Living In The Past, originally a double LP, was re-issued as a single CD. Fans were not best impressed when a double LP containing 87 and a half minutes of music was unsympathetically edited to fit the constraints of a single CD — which was limited to 74 minutes at the time (and newer revisions only go up to 80). Whole tracks were omitted and others severely edited.
    • Original Masters was released in 1985, filling in for a break in action between 1985 and 1987.
    • The band released The Best Of Jethro Tull-The Anniversary Collection, a two-CD collection with remastered hits across their career up to that point, in 1993.
    • 1998 saw a short compilation, Through The Years, an odd assortment of album tracks and live recordings. The Very Best Of Jethro Tull, a single-disc, career-length selection hand-picked by bandleader Ian Anderson, was released in 2001. Finally, the self-explanatory The Best Of Acoustic Jethro Tull was released in 2007.
  • As an indication of how insanely popular Elton John was in the 70s, he put out a greatest hits set a mere four years after his first successful single, and a second greatest hits set just two years after that. And unbelievably, neither set contained any filler.
  • The Complete Recordings is a 1990 compilation album with music by Robert Johnson, posthumously released and well regarded as one of the most essential musical recordings ever.
  • Joy Division's first two compilations, Still and Substance, were primarily "mopping up" releases (the former existing to curb bootlegs and the latter to collect the band's non-album singles and B-sides in the vein of New Order's identically-named compilation). Subsequent compilations, meanwhile, lean into the greatest hits model. The first of these was Permanent, which featured tracks from both studio albums and the two prior compilations plus a new remix of "Love Will Tear Us Apart". The second, The Best of Joy Division, came in both a standard one-disc version and a two-disc one with a collection of BBC Radio 1 sessions as a bonus disc. The third, Total: From Joy Division to New Order, combined Joy Division and New Order tracks as a means of capitalizing on the latter incarnation's reunion.

    Artists K–P 
  • Kirby: In 2004, the Japanese-exclusive compilation The Very Best of Kirby: 52 Hit Tracks was released as a companion piece to the soundtrack album for Kirby & the Amazing Mirror, collecting songs from throughout the franchise's history up to that point.
  • KISS is a big believer in this. Eleven Greatest Hits (inc. 2 Japanese-only releases), nine live albums, and 5 box sets. Not bad for a band who's only had 6 top-20 songs.
  • KodaKumi is infamous for these. Right after her first best-of compilation (which massively boosted her popularity), she released twelve singles in twelve weeks, all of which were put together (with an intro and one new track) and marketed as a second best-of album, only half a year later. A year after THAT, only a few months after releasing a studio album, her third best-of compilation was released as a CD + DVD collection, featuring ballads on the CD, and all-dance reshoots of her more uptempo songs on the DVD. Two studio albums later, she released a collaboration best-of, a remix album, and her third best-of album, coupled with her eighth studio album, followed by another remix album. She released yet another remix album in early 2011. In short, she has almost as many compilations as she does studio albums.
  • Popular Nu Metal band Korn has released two greatest hits albums. First in 2004 the band released one titled Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 which compiled together select songs from all of the band's albums released up to that point, along with a remix of "Freak on a Leash" and two covers (one of Cameo's "Word Up" and another of all three parts of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall"). A "Vol. 2" has yet to be released, as instead the band put out The Essential Korn in 2011 which stuck solely to songs off of the band's output from 1994-2003 (including more songs off those albums, and re-including the covers previously on the other greatest hits album). A possible reasoning for the omissions of songs past 2004 could be due to how fans tend to regard the albums released between Take a Look in the Mirror and Korn III as a low point for the band, and Korn III, the band's Win Back the Crowd album, was still a fresh release at the time.
  • Ladytron released Best of 00-10 which has two exclusive tracks, "Ace of Hz" (which would later appear on their subsequent album Gravity the Seducer) and "Little Black Angel" (a cover of Death in June).
  • Lapfox Trax released four compilation albums, each themed around a different persona for people just getting into their music, in order to avoid Archive Panic. These are It's Murder for Mayhem, Because Maybe! for Renard, The Killer's Notebook for Jackal Queenston, and I Knew A Little Bookworm for Klippa.
  • Led Zeppelin avoided releasing one for a number of years, until the 1990 4-CD box set of their greatest hits. They also have the two-volume set Early Days and Later Days, which are superseded by Mothership, which contains a DVD of live performances in the deluxe edition. The tracklists on both these compilations are almost identical, but neither compilation includes songs from Coda, the band's last studio album. Presumably, this is because Coda "didn't count" as an album due to it being made up of outtakes and songs rejected from inclusion on studio albums due to time constraints. The comprehensive Complete Led Zeppelin also exists, which includes several songs not released on the studio albums at all.
  • John Lennon:
    • Lennon released one greatest hits album while he was alive, Shaved Fish. That one was infamous for having short versions of singles that never charted. Lennon mentioned in a 1980 interview that it was a struggle to even get Shaved Fish out at all, and that the main reason behind the album was that Capitol was in the process of phasing out a lot of John's music, in particular rare non-album tracks like "Power To The People", and that Lennon just wanted to make sure that his music was available at all while he was taking his five-year break from the public eye.
    • A fair percentage of Lennon's post-mortem releases are greatest hits albums. "The John Lennon Collection" was a bit strange because half the songs on it were from Double Fantasy, and most of John's half of Double Fantasy was on that album.
  • Gordon Lightfoot released Gord's Gold, reorchestrations of his best-known songs, after his original label re-released all of his old albums, taking advantage of his newfound popularity.
  • The Best of British £1 Notes is a 2005 compilation that functioned as a "Best Of" album for John Lydon: Most of the album focuses on Public Image Ltd. material because that's the project he's been involved with the longest, but it also includes Sex Pistols songs, as well as solo material and two guest appearances with other artists. This time the one new track was a new Lydon solo recording called "Rabbit Song", taken from an in-progress album that apparently never got off the ground. There was also a two disc version, which added a few more PiL songs and remixes.
  • Madness have released no less than nine different compilation albums, only one less than their ten studio albums of new material. Some of them have virtually the same track listing, though.
  • Madonna has released four:
    • The Immaculate Collection which comprises of fifteen hit singles from her first decade in music and were remixed with QSound technology and two new singles "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me".
    • Something to Remember which was more of a ballad compilation album than a greatest hits album, given the fact that it comprises of five songs she recorded for films and soundtracks including two that were never included in any of her albums prior to this along with three new songs, four previously-released singles, a remix of her Cover Version of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" and an orchestral version of one of the new songs.
    • GHV2, which comprises of fiteen hit singles from her second decade in music though no new material, due to the fact she was busy shooting the remake of Swept Away at the time. Interestingly enough, it originated as a companion album for her 1999 music video compilation The Video Collection 93:99 and was going to come out in the same year to tie in with her then-upcoming world tour but it was scrapped due to her shooting The Next Best Thing as well as her pregnancy that resulted in the tour to be postponed to 2001.
    • Celebration, which marked her last release with Warner (Bros.) Records and true to its name, is a retrospective comprising of hits from her time at the label as well as including three new songs.
  • Matchbox Twenty's Exile on Mainstream includes two discs: one of their singles from their first three albums, and one of new material. Strangely, the disc of new material consists of six songs as opposed to one or two on one disc.
  • Marilyn Manson's Lest We Forget: The Best Of, which covers the first ten years of their career. Songs were generally mixed louder than on the albums (although not to the point of the Loudness War), and Fading into the Next Song was occasionally used where it wasn't originally. There were a couple of non-album singles ("The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell" and "Tainted Love") and a newly recorded cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus", but charting single "I Don't Like The Drugs (But The Drugs Like Me)" was absent. At the time they called it a "farewell album", but after a gap of a few years they kept releasing music.
  • Robin Mark's Days Of Elijah: The Worship Songs Of Robin Mark features his best songs from Revival In Belfast, Come Heal This Land, and Revival In Belfast II.
  • Johnny Mathis: Johnny's Greatest Hits (1958) is the Trope Codifier as well as the Trope Namer, the first true "greatest hits" package by any artist. It not only reached #1 on the Billboard album chart, but remained on said chart for nearly a decade (490 non-consecutive weeks), ensuring that there would be many more such albums in its wake.
  • Paul McCartney has several. There is Wings Greatest, released in 1978. There is All The Best! released in 1988; there are significant differences between the British and American versions of that album, as Paul has different hits in each country. (The British version also had a few new songs; the American version didn't, but the hit ratio was high.) In 2001, Paul released Wingspan, which was half a greatest-hits album from 1970 to 1985 and half "history" (some of which also charted decently). It cost no more than a normal single CD, but Capitol Records had flooded the market with All The Best! CDs immediately prior), so it wasn't fully appreciated. In 2016, he released Pure McCartney, which supplanted all previous collections and was made available in 2 or 4-CD iterations.
  • Reba McEntire has released three conventional "Greatest Hits" albums and a three-disc showstopper entitled Reba: 50 Greatest Hits. And that's just for starters. She's also released CDs containing only her #1 singles, and then there was the mandatory "Millennium Collection." This is fully justified, as she has had no less than eighty Top 40 singles during her career, thirty of which peaked at #1.
  • Tim McGraw has gone through wonkery with two of his greatest-hits albums:
    • Volume 1 had no new songs to release to radio, almost unheard of for a country greatest-hits album.
    • Curb Records released his third greatest-hits album only one year after his second and with just one album of original material in between. To pad it out, Curb included a couple duets from other albums, as well as most of the singles off his then-current album Let It Go. Tim has even said that he does not acknowledge this album's existence. Fans of the genre have said that this album, combined with a re-package of all three greatest-hits albums, and seven singles off Let It Go (even after singles four and five both tanked), are just a form of stalling, since Tim only has one more album left in his contract and there are no other big country acts on the label.
    • By 2010, Curb had cranked out seven McGraw greatest-hits packages. That, among other examples of Executive Meddling, pushed McGraw to fight to leave the label, which he finally did in 2013 after all the lawsuits were settled.
  • Megadeth first issued one to finish their contract with Capitol Records, hence the Punny Name Capitol Punishment: The Megadeth Years. Then there was Still, Alive... and Well? to finish off their contract with Sanctuary Records as Dave Mustaine decided to break off the group (even if there were only two albums under that label - and one was a live one!). Once they were regrouped and re-releasing their catalogue, Capitol released another compilation, Greatest Hits: Back to the Start, with songs voted on by fans plus one Mustaine insisted on including - and overall, all but two tracks from Capitol Punishment made a repeat. Capitol would also issue a third compilation with added B-sides and demos, Anthology: Set the World Afire. And finally, to celebrate the band's 35th anniversary Mustaine picked 35 songs for Warheads on Foreheads (albeit somehow ignoring one of their best known songs, "Peace Sells").
  • Surprisingly for a long-running No-Hit Wonder, the Melvins sort of have two "best of" albums. The first was Melvinmania, which was only released in the UK, focused entirely on their three Atlantic Records albums, and was compiled without the band's involvement — the timing of it's release was most likely an attempt by their former label to cash in on a then-recent UK tour. The second was a band-picked best-of that was basically an extra to their 229 page retrospective book Neither Here Nor There, and wasn't officially available on it's own. The latter is out of print.
  • Men at Work have three studio albums and nine "Greatest Hits" albums.
  • George Michael had two greatest hits albums:
    • Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael, which was a double album comprising all of his hit singles at the time along with three new songs and one cover version that was released on Red Hot + Rio with notable differences of the second disc as in the American and Japanese versions, "The Strangest Thing '97" and "Fantasy" (a B-side from "Waiting for That Day" with a reworked version appearing on the album) are replaced by "Monkey" and "Hard Day", while in the former, "As" was excluded altogether, while "Waltz Away Dreaming" was exclusive to the cassette and MiniDisc versions.
    • Twenty Five is an expanded version of the original, comprising of many songs that were included in the original though with notable exceptions in addition to four hits from his career in Wham! and two new songs and a reworking of "Heal the Pain" along with a limited edition including a third disc comprising of non-single album tracks and one new song. It also marked the first North American release from his discography to include "As" and "Shoot the Dog", both of which were excluded from their respective albums for said territory due to the former being excluded after Michael's arrest for engaging in a lewd act and the latter being excluded for its anti-war content.
  • Ministry's Greatest Fits and Rantology: One includes the original or single versions of most of it's songs and also features "What About Us?" (originally from A.I.: Artificial Intelligence) and a slightly extended version of the "Supernaut" cover originally credited to 1,000 Homo DJs. About half of the other is new remixes or "updates" of old songs, and at the time "The Great Satan" was an exclusive track, but a version later appeared on Rio Grande Blood. Neither, of course, include anything from their Synth-Pop period, which they don't look back on fondly.
  • Joni Mitchell resisted releasing a greatest hits album for many years, reportedly fearing that the availability of a greatest hits compilation would lead her record label to take her actual studio albums out of print, but she agreed to release Hits in 1996 along with a second album titled Misses, which compiled non-hit songs that Mitchell personally selected as being representative of her work.
  • Mötley Crüe loves this as well. They have released five greatest hits albums as well as three box sets.
  • After the band officially broke up in 2013, My Chemical Romance released a greatest hits album in 2014 titled May Death Never Stop You, which included songs from all of the band's commercially released albums, along with one previously unreleased song and demos from the rare demo tape Dreams of Stabbing and/or Being Stabbed.
  • As a band with many popular non-album singles (as well as hits that do appear on their albums, but not in the version that became popular), it's no surprise New Order has a small clutch of greatest hits collections.
    • The first, Substance— the band's best selling album— contains all of the A-sides and most of the B-sides to the group's 12" singles up to 1987 (including re-recordings of "Temptation" and "Confusion" and new songs "True Faith" and "1963", released as a single to promote the compilation). The cassette release in their native UK includes all the band's B-sides, while the double-LP version focuses solely on the A-sides.
    • 1994's (the best of) NewOrder adds in songs from their two post-Substance albums and their UK #1 single "World in Motion", but also contained remixes and edits for most of the tracks in place of the 12" versions (in fact, only "Thieves Like Us" appears in the same version as on Substance). The American release on Qwest Records came out a year later, replaced "The Perfect Kiss", "Shellshock" and "Thieves Like Us" with the non-single album tracks "Dreams Never End", "Age of Consent", and "Love Vigilantes" to further reduce redundancies with Substance, added in a previously unreleased vocal mix of "Let's Go" (which had previously been included in the 1987 film Salvation! as an instrumental), and replaced The Not-Remix of "1963" with the much different single mix from earlier in 1995.
    • 2002's International adds in songs from the one album the band made post-Best Of, but it was only released in a few countries as a budget alternative to the larger Retro Boxed Set that same year. As a result, it's the band's most obscure compilation and is generally thought of as fairly inconsequential.
    • 2005's Singles contains all of the band's 7" single A-sides (which were either more or less popular than the 12" versions, depending on the single) plus the 12"-exclusive original version of "Blue Monday" (the 7" edit of the 1988 remix is also included). The compilation saw a great deal of criticism for its Loudness War mastering, not helped by the fact that Substance was concurrently taken out of print (and remains as such outside of the 2020 digital release). In 2016, the compilation was reissues with a significantly improved (but still squished) master and the Lost Sirens track "I'll Stay With You" added in (in exchange for replacing the "Temptation" remix included on the 2005 US release). Additionally, the tracks "1963-94", "Run", "Bizarre Love Triangle", "True Faith", "Spooky", "Confusion", and "The Perfect Kiss" are replaced with the actual 7" edits (most notably switching out the album version of "Run" with the 7" edit of "Run 2", which had previously been in Keep Circulating the Tapes status as a result of a plagiarism lawsuit from the John Denver estate). As a result of these differences, the running order for the 2016 version is also slightly different from the 2005 one.
    • Lastly, 2011's Total contains the most popular songs from both New Order and its predecessor Joy Division, but the record was only begrudgingly put together by the then-newly reunited band because their record label wanted to cash in on the aforementioned reunion and as such, it isn't well liked by the band's fans.
  • Oasis had two, one with an active band and songs picked by Noel Gallagher (which explains why all but four tracks are from the first two albums or B-sides of those songs, and the third album has no tracks), and another after disbanding, with the singles per se.
  • Ozzy Osbourne has had a few. The first two, Best of Ozz and Ten Commandments, were released at the initiative of the record company in 1989 and 1990. In 1997 Ozzy released his first proper compilation, The Ozzman Cometh, which is a career retrospective with a few live cuts, unreleased songs and demos mixed in. After he became a reality TV star Sony released The Essential Ozzy Osbourne as part of their The Essential line, which covered the hits Cometh missed. After this a boxset was released and Ozzy, sick of having so many compilations pushed out in such a short time, mostly filled it with live tracks and rarities.
  • Brad Paisley fought against the release of one for several years, because he thought that it was unfair to make an album composed of something that the fans already have. The label finally compromised and let him release a two-disc set which features his greatest hits on one disc and an assortment of live tracks on the other.
  • Pearl Jam has rearviewmirror, a Distinct Double Album which closed their contract with Epic Records.note  It has two albums (one with rockers, other with calmer songs), each chronological except the very last song, which reflecting the band's concerts is the usual closer, "Yellow Ledbetter".
  • Pet Shop Boys has released five greatest hits albums:
    • Discography: The Complete Singles Collection, which comprised all of their UK Top 20 hit singles at the time (minus "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?", even though it was released as an A-side single with "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes off You)", which did appear on the album) and two new songs "DJ Culture" and "Was It Worth It?"
    • PopArt: The Hits was more or less an extension of Discography as it also comprised of their post-Behaviour UK Top 20 singles (minus "Absolutely Fabulous", which did despite being a Top 20 hit didn't appear due to licencing reasons since it featured sound bites from the popular BBC sitcom of the same name, "Break 4 Love", which was only released as a US only single and "London", which was released as a single in Germany only) in addition to all singles from its predecessor (minus "Was It Worth It?", which was their only single at the time not to be a UK Top 20 hit) and two new songs "Miracles" and "Flamboyant".
    • Party, which was released in Brazil only to promote the group's Brazilian leg of their 2009-10 Pandemonium tour and included 15 selected singles from their ten albums at the time along with "King of Rome", a song from their tenth album Yes that was never released as a single.
    • Ultimate, which was a single disc retrospective album marking the 25th anniversary of their debut single "West End Girls" and comprising of 18 selected singles from their discography, newly remastered in addition to one new song "Together".
    • Smash, released in 2023, is a 55-track collection containing every single the band released between 1985 and 2020. Because of its sheer length, physical releases of the set are divided among three CDs and 6 vinyl records, with the triple-CD set also including two Blu-rays featuring all of the duo's music videos.
  • Pink Floyd have five:
    • Relics is a 1971 collection of early, mostly non-album, material.
    • A Collection of Great Dance Songs is a 1981 collection which only included six songs, one of which ("Money") was re-recorded due to rights issues with the band's former US distributors, Capitol Records. The band themselves don't look back on it too fondly.
    • Works is an American-oriented 1982 collection by the band's previous US label, Capitol Records, featuring Pink Floyd songs from no later than 1973. The compilation notably marked the first official US release of "Embryo", which was previously exclusive to the 1970 Harvest Records sampler Picnic — A Breath of Fresh Air; Capitol used this fact as a selling point for the album.
    • Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd is a 2001 2-disc collection which did very well, even though die hard fans were upset about the editing of some songs for time constraints. The compilation edits the songs into a more-or-less continual flow of music, with one song ending and the next starting seamlessly.
    • Foot in the Door is a 2011 single-disc release, which was intended to be the one-disc introductory hits package that A Collection of Great Dance Songs attempted and failed to be.
  • Poets of the Fall has Best of Poets of the Fall, only released in India for some reason, and a Subverted entry with Alchemy Vol. 1, as it's actually a collection of the band's favorites and two new songs.
  • The Police:
    • The band's first greatest hits album, Every Breath You Take: The Singles, saw mixed responses for lacking a few of their hits and replacing the Zenyattà Mondatta version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" with a radically different re-recording. In 1995, to promote the standalone reissues of the remasters from the Message in a Box Boxed Set two years prior, it was supplanted by Every Breath You Take: The Classics, which was almost identical but reinserted the 1980 version of "Don't Stand So Close To Me", shunting the 1986 version to the end of the album alongside The Not-Remix of "Message in a Bottle". The DTS and SACD releases also swap out the 1980 version of "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" with a previously unreleased re-recording from the same sessions as "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86".
    • 1992 saw the release of the bluntly-titled Greatest Hits, which marked the first attempt at supplanting Every Breath You Take: The Singles before 1995's The Classics. Addressing criticisms of The Singles, it featured all of the band's UK top 20 hits, including "Synchronicity II" and the 1980 version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me", both of which were left off the 1986 compilation. The album also tosses in "The Bed's Too Big Without You" and "Tea in the Sahara" as bonus tracks to fill out the disc.
    • In 1997, A&M Records released The Very Best of Sting & The Police, which, per the title, mixed in some of Sting's solo hits with his Police material. The original release featured a remix of "Roxanne" by Sean Combs to capitalize on him sampling "Every Breath You Take" in "I'll Be Missing You". The album was later reissued twice with modified tracklists: the 1998 version removed "Russians" and added "Seven Days", "Fragile", and "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", while the 2002 reissue removed "Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot", "Russians", and the "Roxanne" remix while adding "Brand New Day", "Desert Rose", and "So Lonely".
    • 2007 saw the release of a self-titled two-CD compilation, which included almost every single by the band (with the exception of "Secret Journey" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86") and a number of fan favorites.
  • Elvis Presley: ELV1S: 30 #1 Hits turned out to have 31, as bonus track "A Little Less Conversation" topped the UK charts. And there was still material for a follow-up, 2nd to None.
  • Primus's They Can't All Be Zingers, featuring one to three songs each from their first six albums (plus one from the EP included with the Animals Should Not Try To Act Like People DVD). It can be considered more of a "best of" than a "greatest hits" due to including some album tracks and omitting a couple of official singles. The two missing singles in question are "Lacquer Head" and "Electric Uncle Sam" from Antipop, omitted in favor of album track "Coattails Of A Dead Man".Antipop had a mixed critical reception and the band themselves weren't entirely happy with it, but Les Claypool mentions "Coattails Of A Dead Man" favorably in the album liner notes.
  • Public Image Ltd.'s The Greatest Hits, So Far, which covered their recordings from 1978 to 1990 — this amounts to most of their albums because, while they continued recording in some form or other, their output slowed down a lot after 1990. Notable for including the newly recorded song "Don't Ask Me" and a new The Not-Remix version of "Rise".

    Artists Q–S 
  • Queen:
    • The two main ones — Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits II — were released in 1981 and 1991, respectively, and collected the hit singles of the preceding decade. A third album, Greatest Hits III in 1999, consists mainly of live recordings featuring guest performers and some remixes (including "Another One Bites the Dust" featuring Wycleaf Jean from the Small Soldiers soundtrack), although it does contain some songs which were left out on the first two installments.
    • 1981's Greatest Hits was released in North America with a modified tracklist, but went out of print after Queen moved to Capitol Records in the region in 1984. Following Freddie Mercury's death and the inclusion of "Bohemian Rhapsody" in Wayne's World, Hollywood Records put out Classic Queen as an updated replacement to capitalize on renewed interest in the band. Later in 1992, Hollywood put out another compilation called Greatest Hits with a completely different tracklist from the 1981 versions.
    • They also have a series called Deep Cuts, compiling non-hit single, fan favorite album tracks.
    • 2020 saw the release of Greatest Hits in Japan, a Japan-only compilation capitalizing on the band's popularity in the region by featuring tracks voted on by fans there.
  • The biggest hits of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' EMI years (which were not noted for being much of a success) were collected on an album after the success of Blood Sugar Sex Magik; the result was entitled What Hits?. It also included their breakthrough single after signing with Warner (Bros.) Records, "Under the Bridge". In return, the WEA compilation Greatest Hits — which does feature successful singles — features the one EMI song that hit the charts, the cover of "Higher Ground".
  • Reel Big Fish have two: Greatest Hit (And More) was released without their permission and has its title be a reference to "Sell Out". The band themselves later released their own, A Best of Us From the Rest of Us, that even comes complete with acoustic versions of every song that appears on it.
  • R.E.M. have several greatest hits or best of albums, but the four that had actual input from the band were Eponymous, In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988–2003, And I Feel Fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987, and Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011.
    • In Time included the new recordings "Bad Day" (actually a revamped version of an old outtake, itself later included on And I Feel Fine) and "Animal", and a limited edition had an extra disc of B-sides from the same period. What In Time conspicuously didn't have was "Shiny Happy People", one of their best-known singles: They've still got a lot of Creator Backlash for that song, apparently.
    • And I Feel Fine was apparently meant to supplant Eponymous, since it's a more exhaustive compilation of the same period, though Eponymous is still the only place the song "Romance" is available on CD.
    • Part Lies Part Heart Part Truth Part Garbage was announced a week after the band's 2011 disbanding. This one, inspired by Changesonebowie, is their first career-spanning compilation and features the last three songs that the band recorded: "A Month of Saturdays", "We All Go Back to Where We Belong", and "Hallelujah"note . Unlike In Time, this one does include "Shiny Happy People", the band having come to terms with it.
  • The Residents: The only things approaching "hits" that the experimental band has to begin with are their covers of "Kaw-Liga" and "Satisfaction", neither of which were included. However, Petting Zoo did attempt to showcase the band's more accessible moments in reverse chronological order. They even pulled a variation on the practice of including new songs as fan bait — the first two tracks served as a preview of the album Demons Dance Alone, which came out later that same year.
  • Most complication albums of Jimmie Rodgers' recordings are more or less one since all of the recordings he did in his lifetime consisted of an individual song.
  • The Rolling Stones have a lot of those, as early as 1966 by combining their singles in Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass). Hot Rocks 1964–1971 (1971) is their best-selling album in the United States, being certified for 12 million copies. The most comprehensive were made as Milestone Celebrations. The 40th anniversary earned Forty Licks, a two disc 40 track album with 36 hits and 4 new songs. The 50th in turn inspired GRRR!, a three disc, 50 song album with only 2 new tracks (that also got a budget version with 2 discs and 40 tracks — most shared with Forty Licks, including one of the new songs - and a deluxe edition with 4 discs, 80 songs, plus a bonus CD, bonus LP, and a few collectibles). The most recent one is Honk!, collecting the best songs starting from Sticky Fingers and going up until Blue & Lonesome, again with regular (36 songs), expanded (added 7 live tracks) and budget (20 songs) versions.
  • Roxy Music has more than a few compilations of this nature, several of which are actually a mix of their songs and Bryan Ferry solo numbers. Two of the more successful compilations were released in the span of 3 years — 1986's Street Life: 20 Great Hits, weighted more to Roxy Music numbers, and 1988's The Ultimate Collection, which featured primarily Ferry songs. The latter also featured two new-to-U.K.-listeners songs: a Ferry cover of "He'll Have to Go" and the U.S.-only single "Help Me" (the song originally intended for the end credits of The Fly (1986) — and notable for not appearing on that soundtrack album after being demoted to background music in one scene).
  • Rush has released several compilations over their career, but the most noteworthy that would be considered "greatest hits" albums are the double album Chronicles released in 1990, and The Spirit of Radio: Greatest Hits 1974-1987 released in 2003.
  • Saint Etienne have put out about half a dozen, with so many mixed up and crossed over tracklists it can be difficult to work out which is which, and which isn't an actual new album, and which ones were only released in certain areas, and... The main ones are probably Too Young To Die, Smash The System and London Conversations, but there's also You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone, Fairy Tales (Japan only), Travel Edition (US only), Boxette (a box set, natch), and several remix albums.
  • Peter Schilling's The Different Story (World Of Lust And Crime) was more a compilation album with material from both Error in the System and Things To Come with only the title track as its new song at the time of its release, since only "Major Tom (Coming Home)" was considered to be a hit.
  • As a certified Long Runner, Sesame Street has done several over their 45+ year history:
    • Sing the Hit Songs of Sesame Street (1974) was the earliest greatest hits album in the show's extensive discography.
    • 25 Greatest Hits (1975) was issued by K-Tel (you know, the company that did the Solid Gold album series and all those other various artists compilations), who was the first outside label to release a Sesame compilation.
    • 60 Favorite Songs from Sesame Street (1975) spans 5 LP's and mostly covers songs from the show's previous backlog of released material, but also contains some exclusive and never-released-again cuts (for example the TV version of "What's the Name Of That Song?")
    • Subverted with Sesame Street Gold! (1977), which is just a straight reissue of the show's first two albumsnote  in a single package, though both albums spawned some of the show's most classic songs.
    • Muppet Masquerade (1978) added an interesting twist to the "greatest hits" concept: it contained 3 LP's with one side each of a certain character's songs (Bert and Ernie shared one side) along with cardboard masks of the characters whose songs were featured, encouraging young listeners to "Be a Muppet!"
    • Sesame Street Treasury (1980)
    • In 1983, Bert, Big Bird, the Count, Cookie Monster, Ernie, Oscar and Grover all got "The Best Of..." compilations to themselves. Multiple reissues and similar compilations (e.g. "C" Is for Cookie: Cookie's Favorite Songs from 1995) would follow over the years.
    • The Best of Sesame Street (1987) was the first CD made of the show, and the only such CD made in The '80s.
    • Jim Henson: A Sesame Street Celebration (1991) is an oddly specific greatest hits album, as it was more of a tribute to Jim Henson after he died. Of the 21 tracks (nine of which were released for the first time), the first half is primarily focused on Ernie, the second primarily on Kermit (both were Jim's most well-known Sesame characters), and a few tracks by some other Jim characters appear occasionally.
    • Ditto for Sing: Songs of Joe Raposo (1992), which was released three years after the prolific Street composer's death from cancer. In addition to the obligatory Muppet-focused tracks, Raposo himself sung on a few others, and there were also guest appearances from Ray Charles, Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, and the Carpenters (whose version of "Sing", as featured here, was first released on their 1973 album Now And Then and became a chart hit from there).
    • Sesame Street Celebrates! (1994) marked the show's 25th anniversary with some classic cuts plus eight previously unreleased songs.
    • Platinum All-Time Favorites (1995) actually made it into the National Recording Registry 20 years after its release. A follow-up album, Platinum Too, was released in 1997.
    • Sesame Street Best (1997)
    • Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music (2003): Like Sesame Street Celebrates!, Songs from the Street marked the 35th anniversary of the show with some timeless classics and exclusive cuts, including a brand-new (at the time) remix of the classic theme by Ursula 1000. It takes up three discs containing 63 tracks, 25 of which were unreleased.
  • Shakira got her own Greatest Hits in Spanish after four albums... but only songs from the latter two made it, because the two first were commercial failures full of Executive Meddling...
  • Silverchair's The Best Of, Volume 1, which was put out without the band's approval once they left Sony Music, and thus only covers the first three albums. It came in a couple of different editions — one included a separate disc of B-sides and rarities, while the other crammed the hits and most of those same non-album tracks onto the same CD.
  • Simon & Garfunkel are an interesting example in that there have been more greatest hits albums released of their work than studio albums.
  • Sloan: A Sides Win: Singles 1992–2005, which consisted of 14 already released singles plus 2 new ones.
  • Sony Music: The Essential series usually uses 2 discs (some have had limited editions with three) to make the moniker worthy. There are those that still fall short, though (Iron Maiden's had only two songs from each of their 13 albums; comprehensive, but still has many absences).
  • After their breakup, Soundgarden released the compilation A-Sides: Despite the title, it didn't quite have every song they released as a single, and also featured a few songs that weren't originally a-sides — "Nothing to Say" and "Bleed Together" were both B Sides note , while "Get On The Snake" was on Louder Than Love but was never released as a single. A second best of, called Telephantasm, came thirteen years later, in tandem with the band's reunion: It was notable for coming in Vanilla Edition and Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition flavors, and for the fact that copies of the Vanilla Edition note  were included with purchase of Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock.
  • The Specials released seven albums, but they had more than twice as many greatest hits compilations, all of which seem to consist of songs from the first two albums, the Special AKA Live EP and the tracks included on the Ghost Town single (although all of these singles were top ten hits).
  • SpongeBob SquarePants released the album SpongeBob's Greatest Hits in 2009 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the series. It featured several tracks heard on previous SpongeBob albums, in addition to eight tracks never before released on a soundtrack. And to top it all off, one of those eight tracks partially inspired a future episode.
  • Bruce Springsteen's first greatest hits album, although a huge seller, was widely criticized by hardcore fans for containing too many new songs (four of them), causing some huge hits like "I'm on Fire" and "Cover Me" to be excluded.
  • Starflyer 59's greatest-hits album Easy Come, Easy Go featured exactly three songs from each of the band's five prior albums—specifically, the first two tracks plus either track 3 or track 4. It also came with a second disc, filled with B-sides and live tracks, and the liner notes had a thorough history of the band.
  • Star Trek has this with 1991's Star Trek: The Astral Symphony, a Star Trek: The Films (the first five of them) collection assembled by Cliff Eidelman for Paramount, commercially released by Milan Records.
  • Ringo Starr has released a couple of these. His first, Blast from the Past, is highly valued because it has a much higher hit ratio than the albums it collected from, as well as a few songs that up to then had been singles-only. He released another one called Photograph in 2007, but it didn't get much publicity.
  • Sting:
    • 1994 saw the release of Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984-1994, compiling various tracks from his solo career (which actually started with The Dream of the Blue Turtles in 1985). The compilation includes two new songs: "When We Dance" and "This Cowboy Song".
    • In 2011, Sting released The Best of 25 Years, a retrospective compilation featuring new remixes of a few tracks alongside ones directly lifted from his earlier albums.
  • David Sylvian had exactly one greatest hits collection: A Victim of Stars 1982-2012, a career-spanning double-CD set covering songs from Japan's final album to the newly-recorded song "Where's Your Gravity?"

    Artists T–Z 
  • Billy Talent got one in 2014, with an additional two new tracks, "Chasing The Sun" and "Kingdom of Zod".
  • J-pop singer Nana Tanimura released her debut album four years after her first single, having released ''seven' more singles following, two of which were double a-sides. Her debut album wound up being a best-of with a number of B-sides tossed in for good measure.
  • Talking Heads released a number of compilations over the years:
    • First, there was Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites, a two-CD retrospective compilation that included not only studio and live cuts from their debut non-album single in 1977 to their last pre-breakup single in 1991, but also demos and newly-finished outtakes. One of these, "Lifetime Piling Up", was released as a single to promote the album. Outside the US and Canada, the album was truncated to one disc and retitled Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads; "Lifetime Piling Up" was the sole Sand in the Vaseline exclusive to be featured on it.
    • Then there was a second collection called Once in a Lifetime, an even larger retrospective Boxed Set spanning three CDs plus an expanded DVD release of the Storytelling Giant music video collection. Included in the set is one new track: "In Asking Land", an outtake from the Naked sessions that was previously the basis for frontman David Byrne's 1989 solo piece "Carnival Eyes".
    • Lastly, there was The Best of Talking Heads, a single-disc collection with a considerably different tracklist than the first Once in a Lifetime compilation. This one focuses only on studio cuts (meaning the Stop Making Sense live tracks are absent) and omits "Sax and Violins" and "Lifetime Piling Up". Unlike the first Once in a Lifetime, it does include "Love → Building on Fire", which was on Sand in the Vaseline but excluded from its international counterpart.
  • Steve Taylor released two such albums. As is generally the case, the latter of the two (titled Now The Truth Can Be Told) is preferred, since it contains his hits from later in his career.
  • Tears for Fears: The only two that the band were directly involved with are Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits 82–92) and Rule the World: The Greatest Hits. The latter is a revised version of the former that replaces the compilation-exclusive "Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)" with songs from the band's post-The Seeds of Love output and the new tracks "I Love You but I'm Lost" and "Stay" (the latter of which would later be the closing track on The Tipping Point). There are at least a dozen more that were produced without their input.
  • The Tragically Hip's Yer Favourites has two discs of songs chosen by fans, and unsurprisingly, all of the band's biggest singles were picked, effectively making it a greatest hits album.
  • Universal Music Group: 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection series were commonplace during the early 2000s. These were budget greatest hits albums of the artist's big hits packaged in with an essay-style biography by a music critic. Some of these are straight reissues of existing greatest hits albums such as Squeeze's Singles - 45's and Under. Later, they launched the more career-spanning 2-disc Gold series, to compete with The Essential. They've also launched a second Greatest Hits line, Icon, which is a one disc budget compilation like the 20th Century Masters, which they're still producing anyway.
  • Van Halen released one before reuniting with David Lee Roth (Best Of Volume I) and another reuniting with Sammy Hagar (Best of Both Worlds, which was double to be more comprehensive... but had a random tracklisting that frequently alternates Sammy and Dave).
  • Country music artist Phil Vassar did an interesting variation. Since he had several hits as a songwriter before he had any as a singer (and some for at least a year after his singing career began), his Greatest Hits includes both his own songs and his versions of some of his pre-fame songs (namely "I'm Alright" by Jo Dee Messina, "My Next Thirty Years" and "For a Little While" by Tim McGraw and "Little Red Rodeo" by Collin Raye).
  • Despite the fact they never actually had a hit song, The Velvet Underground have two of these. One is considered generally inferior due to picking almost all of their most conventional songs; the second was more well-received. There is a slight catch with the latter compilation though - since it was released through Universal Music Group, who own the rights to every VU album except for Loaded, songs from that album had to be left out; performances of "Sweet Jane" and "Rock And Roll" from 1969: The Velvet Underground Live were included to make up for it.
  • ICON: A Very Special Christmas is one for the A Very Special Christmas series of albums.
  • Sid Sings by Sid Vicious is a combination of this, Cover Album, and Live Album. It was released after Sid's early death and was nothing more than a cobbled together collection of badly produced and sang tracks. But it's the only album ever made around his name and in that regard it's as close to a greatest hits album by him you can find.
  • Muddy Waters' The Anthology 1947-1972 is a double album with the most essential recordings this blues legend made between 1947 and 1972.
  • Westlife have two:
    • Unbreakable – The Greatest Hits Volume 1, which comprised of all of their UK Top 20 hits released at the time with six new songs. The Asian and Spanish versions include a bilingual duet of their song "Flying Without Wings" aa the twentieth track, such as BoA for the former and Cristian Castro for the latter, along with the Asian version having the US mix of "A World of Our Own" instead of the original version and replaces "What Makes a Man" with their non-UK and Ireland single "I Lay My Love on You".
    • Greatest Hits, which was available in single disc and double disc deluxe editions with four new songs.
  • A cursory look at Amazon.com reveals that Bruce Willis has released four greatest hits albums for his recording career. One of which uses the same cover art as his actual album.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic:
    • The Food Album and The TV Album respectively focused on songs about food and songs about TV. Al himself detested both records, as they were only put out due to contractual obligations, and commissioned artwork that riffed on them by respectively depicting him being devoured by a monster and him blowing up a TV.
    • Greatest Hits Volume 2 featured his Crash Test Dummies parody "Headline News", which had only been previously released as a single and the long-out-of-print Permanent Record: Al in the Box compilation.
    • Al didn't include much previously unavailable material on his The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic two-disc set, only including a couple mixes of songs not on the original CDs (i.e. the extra-gory version of "The Night Santa Went Crazy" and the single release of "UHF"), but he did manage to nearly jam-pack each completely full. The cover can appropriately serve as a parody of The Essential Michael Jackson.
  • Yellow Magic Orchestra saw no shortage of compilations following their first dissolution, with the total number of them just barely beating out the number of actual studio albums they released. Among others...
    • Sealed, released immediately after the band "spread out" in 1984, is a Distinct Quadruple Album, with each of the first three discs based around songs by each of the three band members. The fourth disc, meanwhile, is dedicated to songs that the band wrote collaboratively.
    • Kyoretsu Na Rhythm was a US-oriented compilation made as a prelude to Restless Records' releases of the band's first round of remasters. The compilation later saw an expanded release in Japan the following year.
    • UC YMO: Ultimate Collection of Yellow Magic Orchestra was a retrospective two-CD compilation put out in 2003 to commemorate the reissues of the 1999 remasters in Japan, Europe, and Canada. In addition to the band's best-known songs, the album also features a number of rarities, most of which were never released on CD until then.
  • Yes have 7 "official" greatest hits albums, many of them dedicated to a specific stint on a label. Three or four of them are double-disc comilations, some of which are repackagings. Many of them were released after their last studio album, 2000's Magnification, by Rhino Records, who owns their Atlantic Records recordings. That's not to count the boxed sets and "friends of Yes" best -ofs, or the unofficial collections.
  • The Best of Young MC is notable for basically being his first album, with a different title, and three fewer songs. In other words, whoever organized this compilation thought that Young MC ran out of creativity 10/13 of the way through his first album, but deemed a greatest hits album necessary anyway.
  • ZZ Top has several, most notably the double-platinum The Best of ZZ Top (1977) and triple-platinum Greatest Hits (1992).

    Unusual Trends 
  • If an artist's catalog is too small for a true greatest hits album, the label may occasionally just repackage an album with such a title as a sales gimmick:
    • The Best of Betty Boo is her debut, Boomania, in a different order with a couple of 12" mixes thrown in, because the record company didn't own, and couldn't be bothered to license, the rights to her second album, Grrr... It's Betty Boo.
    • The Best of Electribe 101 featuring Billie Ray Martin is a straight reissue of their debut (and only) album, Electribal Memories, with the new title covering up the old one on the sleeve.
    • The Best of Flowered Up is just their sole album, A Life With Brian, plus one bonus track (albeit a 13-minute one that bumps up the playing time by nearly a third).
    • Zug Izland has Toxicology: Zug Izland's Dopest Hits.. despite never having any real hits, instead being mostly comprised of songs from Cracked Tiles which is justified, as the album was released to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of that album. Syn has stated the album would be reiussued with bonus tracks, so it could very likely fit in this trend. It also contains two remixes to "Saved" and "Y", as well as three new original tracks.
  • Anecdotal evidence in British Pop Music suggests when a band releases a greatest hits album, in most cases after three or four studio albums, it is to be taken taken as a sign that the band are about to split up. Examples include greatest hits albums by Atomic Kitten, Steps and Blue.
  • Some musicians focus on creating singles, mixtapes, or collaborative tracks to the extent that they can (and have) legitimately put out a Best Of compilation as their debut album. Chamillionaire and Perfume are two such artists who have done this.
  • Some bands refuse to release a greatest hits album, notably AC/DC and Metallica. Radiohead also has refused to do such a compilation, but upon their departure from Parlophone Records, Radiohead: The Best of was released without their cooperation.
    • On the other hand, Metallica has S&M, which as live albums go, doubles as a greatest hits collection complete with brand new songs
    • And AC/DC has two soundtrack albums that double as compilations, Who Made Who and Iron Man 2.
    • Until 2012, AC/DC took this trope up to eleven by refusing to licence their music to iTunes as they allowed individual song purchases and the band wish their music to only be available as complete albums (aside from the two soundtracks previously mentioned), so you couldn't (legally) even compile your own greatest hits collection without purchasing the actual albums.
    • Make that Up to Twelve for AC/DC, who wouldn't even release individual songs for Rock Band because it would compromise the integrity of the album and forced Harmonix to release it as its own disc for the game. The album in question is a live album that, incidentally, features most of their big hits.

    Parodies and Discussions 
  • Some musicians name their debut album Greatest Hits purely as a joke:
  • Jaga Jazzist. For extra irony points, the band now considers the album, Jævla Jazzist Grete Stitz, to be Old Shame.
  • Mrs. Miller (the Ur-Example, in 1966). What makes it funnier is that her next album was called Will Success Spoil Mrs. Miller?; said "success" came from her "greatest hits" album and not the other way around.
  • Reggie And The Full Effect's Greatest Hits 1984–1987 — a further joke is that, despite the dates in the title, it was recorded in 1998; the band didn't even exist in 1984.
  • Some artists take the mickey out of the concept by releasing tongue-in-cheek "worst of" albums:
    • A collection of Culture Club and Boy George hits was titled At Worst... The Best of Boy George and Culture Club.
    • Jefferson Airplane called their first best-of release The Worst of Jefferson Airplane.
    • Peter Schickele has The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach (The cover of which shows the titular composer examining a large sausage).
    • Type O Negative had two "best of" albums, one compiled by the band themselves, and another put together by their by-then former record label, both largely covering the same material. In line with the band's occasional use of Self-Deprecation, the former was called The Least Worst of Type O Negative, and started with a completely silent filler track from one of their albums (the implication being that they considered 39 seconds of silence to be among their best work).
  • Tori Amos didn't want to release a greatest hits compilation, so she instead released a "sonic autobiography" Tales of a Librarian. In other words, she chose songs she felt told her life story. The majority of the songs on it were singles, but non-single tracks, two new songs, and two re-recorded B-sides were also added.
  • Barenaked Ladies parodied this concept on their first album with the song "Box Set", which is about a band explaining that they're releasing a six-disc Boxed Set, only one of which contains any music worth listening to, and if you're a fan of the band you already have everything on it.
    • Then in 2001, a lyric from this song provided the title for All Their Greatest Hits, their first such compilation. Confusingly, "Box Set" was not actually included on this disc. (To be fair, the song itself was never a hit, or even a single.)
  • The 1965 album Best of the Beatles does not contain any of The Beatles' hit songs, or any songs by the Beatles at all. It's an album of original songs by Pete Best, (formerly) of the Beatles.
  • When Garth Brooks assumed the alter ego of Chris Gaines, his first and only album under the Chris Gaines pseudonym was widely called Greatest Hits (though its actual name was Garth Brooks in... The Life of Chris Gaines). The whole album acted as if Gaines was already an established singer with several pop hits under his belt, even listing a fake backstory and chart positions in the liner notes.
  • In Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, a partying monster puts on Best of Little Kids Screaming.
  • The soundtrack release for Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories had "Best of" as part of the album's name; it is also the only album released from the game.
  • Jeff Foxworthy played with the title a bit, releasing a compilation called Greatest Bits, which included snippets from some of his comedy sketches.
  • Homestar Runner: The Strong Bad Email compilation DVD Sbemails' 50 Greatest Hits'' contained both well-known emails like "dragon" and "fan club", and other assorted hidden gems, including 5 bonus emails (not new ones, but already existing emails added as bonuses). It was made to resemble an infomercial mocking less popular sbemails; among other things, it claimed to cut through "caked on tape-leg". The DVD is no longer purchasable, which is unfortunate, as it was the only way to get creators' commentary for certain emails.
  • Phone prankster Roy D. Mercer released a compilation called Greatest Fits.
  • One NME writer wrote a defense of said compilations, using as a starting point how prior to releasing Franz Ferdinand's own Hits To The Head frontman Alex Kapranos sung the praises of those albums:
    There's quite a lot of snobbery about greatest hits, but I love Greatest Hits records! I grew up with Greatest Hits records. My folks didn't have a 4,000 LP record collection. They had best-ofs, they had Greatest Hits, they had "Changes" by Bowie [presumably Changesonebowie]. They didn't have Low, they didn't have Lodger — and that was enough for them. If that's all they wanted to hear, if that's all these needed to hear from those artists then fuck it — you enjoy that!
  • Parodied in Pachelbel's Greatest Hit (note the lack of an "s"), an album containing fifteen different arrangements and adaptations of Pachelbel's Canon.
  • Elvis' Greatest Shit!! is an infamous bootleg compilation of studio recordings and outtakes representing the absolute worst of Elvis Presley's career. The producer of the album, known only as "Richard," stated that the purpose of the album was to serve as a Take That! against Presley's post-mortem deification, providing an unapologetically tasteless reminder that even artists as highly revered as Presley can't realistically have a 100% perfect output.
  • The Residents subverted this with Our Finest Flowers. Rather than releasing a standard greatest hits album, they took a long-standing tradition of messing around with existing music, and applied it to their own. The result was an album full of brand new songs that consisted of mashed-up songs from previous albums. Word of God tells us that this happened because a Resident vomited on a track listing for a greatest hits album that was being planned.
  • Public Enemy titled their 1992 compilation album Greatest Misses. It isn't really a greatest hits album, instead a compilation album of outtakes, remixes, and a live performance.
  • Richard Sherman and Milt Larsen, the gents behind the music of the film Mary Poppins, released ''Smash Flops," a 1968 collection of songs of dubious merit by different artists. Among the selections are "Columbus You Big Bag of Steam," "When Amelia Earhart Flies Home," "Watch World War III On Pay TV," "Congratulations Tom Dewey" and more.

Alternative Title(s): Best Of Album, Greatest Hits

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