Greatest Hits Album - Notable Compilations

Notable Compilations

Madonna's The Immaculate Collection is the best selling greatest hits compilation by a solo artist; all of the songs on it are presented in different versions than the original hit versions. The Eagles' Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) is the best selling greatest hits compilation by a group and also one of the ten best selling albums in history.Greatest hits albums are typically produced after an artist has had enough successful songs to fill out an album release. Some artists, such as Madonna, Britney Spears, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Kenny Rogers, Aerosmith, Kiss, U2, Los Tigres del Norte, Queen, Kylie Minogue and Billy Joel, have released multiple greatest hits albums through their careers. Some greatest hits albums are released only at the end of the artist or group's career. Creed released a greatest hits album after they disbanded.

In British pop music, when a band releases a greatest hits album, in most cases after three or four studio albums, it is usually taken as a sign that the band are about to split up. Examples include greatest hits albums by Atomic Kitten, Steps, S Club 7, Blue, Five and Take That, although the latter band would reform nine years later. Recent exceptions to this "rule" include Westlife, Girls Aloud, McFly, and Sugababes, who have released new material after their greatest hits collections. In other cases, Greatest Hits will be released to capitalise on the renewed popularity of a newly reformed band. An example of this is Take That's Never Forget and Spice Girls' Greatest Hits

Some bands refuse to release a greatest hits album, notably AC/DC and Metallica, (AC/DC, however, has released two compilation albums in the past: Who Made Who and Iron Man 2, which are both movie soundtracks). Manic Street Preachers initially refused to do a greatest hits, but in the end Forever Delayed was released. A later release, National Treasures was selected and endorsed by the band. Radiohead also refused to do such a compilation, but upon their departure from Parlophone Records, Radiohead: The Best of was released without their cooperation. This was initially to be the case with Oasis, but upon realization that the release was inevitable, the band took direct involvement, selecting the tracklisting, track order, and the artwork. The country music star Garth Brooks long opposed the release of a greatest hits collection, but agreed to it in 1994 but only for a limited time (his release, The Hits was quickly deleted, but not until selling well over ten million copies). Joni Mitchell also 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.

Greatest hits collections can also boost a falling music career. The Beautiful South's first greatest hits album, Carry on up the Charts, was originally strongly opposed by the band. However, upon release it became one of the fastest selling albums in chart history.

Often, a Greatest Hits VHS or DVD collection can be released, which features the music videos to the hits. These are often released concurrently with a Greatest Hits album (a more recent example being the Oasis release Time Flies... 1994-2009). Although sometimes, a Greatest Hits VHS or DVD can be released as a solo release without a companion album (a good example being the Guns N' Roses VHS/DVD Welcome to the Videos, released in 1998. Guns N' Roses would eventually release a greatest hits album in 2004). Another example of a video greatest hits without a companion audio album would be Positive Mental Octopus by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, released in 1990. However, in 1992, the band released a video called What Hits?!, which contained all the videos from Positive Mental Octopus and also had an accompanying album. Occasionally, a DVD release will feature music videos for singles that were not included on the Greatest Hits album. Whilst the Greatest Hits album might only contain a small number of singles, A DVD release will often contain all the band's music videos up until that point. Two examples of this are Blur's The Best Of DVD and Jamiroquai's High Times.

Radio stations are now emerging that only play Greatest Hits albums as their source material.