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BY TIM SHELLBERG
Times Correspondent | Sunday, November 21, 2004 | (No comments posted.)
Tis the season for the music industry to cash in on the pending holiday market, flooding stores with best-of sets by guaranteed sellers and box sets occasionally proportionate to fit in a Christmas stocking.
At best, these collections sum up the artist's career impeccably and serve as an indispensable gateway disc for the listener to explore the musician or band's catalog deeper. Occasionally, an in-depth multi-disc set will serve as manna for die-hard fans, heavy on rarities and out-takes. But oftentimes, these compilations are merely product, doing nothing more than boosting the artist's sales and the label's fourth-quarter projections.
Listed below is a rundown of greatest hits discs by proven popular music favorites, released within the last six weeks and timed, so it seems, for the holiday shopping rush. In some cases, these new releases by old favorites have more than enough substance to stay in or around the stereo long after the holiday season. Yet the consumer also is advised to purchase with caution in several instances as well.
* The Beatles, "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1" (Capitol)
Last year around this time, Paul McCartney helmed "Let it Be -- Naked," which stripped off producer Phil Spector's lush arrangements on the 1970 album with mixed reactions among Beatlemaniacs. Consisting of both stereo and mono mixes of the fab four's first four U.S. releases -- "Meet The Beatles," "The Beatles' Second Album," "Something New" and "Beatles ‘65" -- some are already lambasting "Vol. 1" for bypassing the arguably superior U.K. versions of the albums for their re-configured stateside counterparts, which went out of print when the Beatles' albums were released on disc more than a decade and a half ago.
* Bee Gees, "Number Ones" (Polydor)
Following the lead of The Beatles "1" and Elvis Presley's "30 Number One Hits," "Number Ones" collects all the Brothers Gibbs' chart-toppers from both sides of the pond in their near four-decade-long career. While their 2001 double-disc retrospective, "Their Greatest Hits -- For the Record," does a better job at summarizing the trio's legacy, "Number Ones" will certainly liven up any social gathering, holiday and otherwise.
* Bon Jovi, "100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong" (Island)
Consisting of four CDs and a DVD, "100,000,000 Fans" is a hit-free assemblage of unreleased material, and solely for ardent fans of the band reminiscent of another New Jersey rocker's vault-cleaning excursion, Bruce Springsteen's 1998 set "Tracks." And with only 50 songs spread over four discs, one wonders why Jon Bon and Co., didn't kick open the archives just a little bit more.
* Ray Charles, "Ray" (Rhino)
While released primarily as a soundtrack to the acclaimed Jamie Foxx-starring biopic, "Ray" works equally as an amazing look at the Genius's groundbreaking musical history. An indispensable disc.
* Grateful Dead, "Beyond Description: 1973-1989" (Grateful Dead/Rhino)
There may be too much here even for the most grateful Deadhead. A dozen discs total with more than 160 tracks, "Beyond Description" culls together every studio and sanctioned live disc during the band's tenure with Arista Records, and with hearty helpings of outtakes and bonus live tracks. While their time under the Arista mast has been long deemed inferior to their '60s and '70s stint with Warner Bros., "Beyond Description" is filled with treasures galore. For the Dead completist, it's a necessary bookend to 2001's "The Golden Road: 1965-1973," the dozen-disc collection that leaves no stone unturned from their Warner Bros. years.
* Michael Jackson, "The Ultimate Collection" (Sony)
Consisting of four CDs and a live DVD taken from a performance in Bucharest in the early '90s, "The Ultimate Collection" lives up to its name, covering Jackson's earnest beginnings with his brothers in the Jackson 5 and concluding with a trio of new songs released specifically for this set. A small handful of unearthed outtakes and mixes add spice to this set which, along with the hits, does its best to weed out the better moments of the "King of Pop's" recent fallible years.
* Various Artists, "Left of the Dial" (Rhino)
A perfect counterpart to last year's "No Thanks! The '70's Punk Rebellion," the four-disc "Dial" corrals the finer moments of '80s college and alternative rock. While almost all of the 82 tracks landed under the mainstream radar at the time of their release, "Dial," which features gems from the eclectic likes of the Replacements, Husker Du, XTC and Joy Division, to name just a few, is a thorough blueprint for what became the '90s alt-rock revolution.
* John Mellencamp, "Words & Music: John Mellencamp's Greatest Hits" (Island)
A mix of classic rock mainstays such as "Jack and Diane" and "I Need a Lover" with adventurous latter-day excursions that found Mellencamp breaking through his heartland rock frame, "Words & Music" superbly chronicles Bloomington's musical son's career thus far in an essential double-disc summary. There's nary a dud to be found here.
* Nirvana, "With the Lights Out" (Geffen)
Released Tuesday, "Lights" is one of the most anticipated box sets to hit the shelves in years. This originally was scheduled for release in 2001 to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Nirvana's landscape-shattering "Nevermind," but was tied up in legal hoo-ha between surviving band members Dave Grohl and Chris Novoselic and Kurt Cobain's widow, Courtney Love. The triple-disc, single-DVD "Lights" is heavy on Kurt Cobain compositions that are just now seeing the light of day. As essential as the albums released in Cobain's lifetime, expect this one to fly off the shelves.
* Pearl Jam: "Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits 1991-2003" (Epic)
Nirvana's grunge brethren's collection is another story altogether. A two-disc collection of hits and fan favorites, "Rearviewmirror" is as much Pearl Jam's last contractual obligation to their label as it is a best-of set. While there's no new ground covered here, "Rearviewmirror" gives equal space to lesser-known but as-superb gems from the band's latter-day efforts alongside now-overplayed staples such as "Alive" and "Jeremy."
* Britney Spears, "Greatest Hits: My Prerogative" (Jive) and Shania Twain, "Greatest Hits" (Mercury Nashville)
Both "My Prerogative" and "Greatest Hits" are excursions in boosting Spears and Twain's sagging sales numbers, with the added new song or two thrown in to lure shoppers. The songstresses have each released only four proper albums to date and, despite tabloid suggestions, don't seem poised to call it a day for good. And weren't Spears' "Oops -- I Did it Again" and Twain's "Come on Over" greatest hits albums of sorts in their own rights? Ardent fans are encouraged to download the new songs and save their money here.
* Neil Young, "Greatest Hits" (Reprise)
The first single-disc best-of of Young's three decade-plus career, "Greatest Hits" merely scratches the surface (a review of "Greatest Hits" appears inside).
Opinions expressed solely are those of the writer.
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