The Byrds' Greatest Hits

The Byrds' Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits album by the American rock band The Byrds and was released in August 1967 on Columbia Records (see 1967 in music). It is the top-selling album in The Byrds' catalogue and reached #6 on the Billboard Top LPs chart but failed to break into the UK Albums Chart. The album provides a summary of The Byrds' history during Gene Clark and David Crosby's tenure with the band and also functions as a survey of the group's hit singles from 1965 to 1967, a period when the band had its greatest amount of success on the singles chart. Most of the band's U.S. A-sides from this period are included on the album, along with three of their more important album tracks: "I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better", "The Bells of Rhymney", and "Chimes of Freedom". The three U.S. singles from this period that are not included on the album are "Set You Free This Time", "Have You Seen Her Face" and "Lady Friend" (although these songs have been included as bonus tracks on various CD reissues of the album). All of the songs included on the original Greatest Hits album can also be found on the band's first four albums, Mr. Tambourine Man, Turn! Turn! Turn!, Fifth Dimension and Younger Than Yesterday.

The eight tracks on The Byrds' Greatest Hits that had been singles peaked at the following positions on the Billboard Hot 100: "5D (Fifth Dimension)" #44; "All I Really Want to Do" #40; "Mr. Spaceman" #36; "My Back Pages" #30; "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" #29; "Eight Miles High" #14; "Turn! Turn! Turn!" #1; and "Mr. Tambourine Man" #1. In addition, four of the singles included on the album had charted in the United Kingdom, peaking at the following positions on the UK Singles Chart: "Turn! Turn! Turn!" #26; "Eight Miles High" #24; "All I Really Want to Do" #4; and "Mr. Tambourine Man" #1. In particular, the "Eight Miles High", "Turn! Turn! Turn!", and "Mr. Tambourine Man" singles were widely influential during the 1960s, a time when singles, at least in pop music, were as important in their own right as albums, and generally more so. "Turn! Turn! Turn!" summed up the decade's counter-cultural values as much as "Blowin' in the Wind", "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" or "All You Need Is Love", while "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Eight Miles High" helped to introduce the subgenres of folk rock and psychedelic rock respectively into the popular music of the day.