Hits (compilation Series)

Hits (compilation Series)

Hits is a compilation album series that ran in the United Kingdom for over twenty years from 1984 until 2006. It was compiled as a joint venture, variously between the compilation arms of the Sony BMG and Warner Music groups to rival the Now That's What I Call Music series that had launched a year earlier in 1983, compiled by rival companies EMI and Virgin. Initially, the Hits brand was arguably as popular as its main rival, with volume one through to volume eight all achieving at least a platinum BPI award, with several of the early albums going multi-platinum. The standard release rate of The Hits Album was two volumes per year compared with three volumes of the Now albums.

Five years into the Hits series' run, a drop in sales resulted in several re-brands meaning the series completely lost momentum with the release pattern and numbering of each volume. In November 1989, the first of a number of revamps occurred with what would have been The Hits Album 11 being issued with a new title; Monster Hits. In 1990, The Hit Pack was released, and by 1991 it was back to simply The Hits Album again. The series was then briefly retired, and in 1992, there were not any Hits compilations released. The following year, BMG partnered with compilation specialist company Telstar Records for a brief run of four volumes of the Hits '93 single-CD compilations.

From December 1995, BMG and Warner Music partnered for a new series of Hits albums, and Hits '96 was the first release of the relaunched brand. This was a very successful relaunch, and once again the Hits series started to rival the success of the contemporaneous Now releases of the time. Unlike the earlier Hits albums, there were up to five compilations a year, and instead of a volume number, the titles of this series had varied titles: Hits, New Hits, Fresh Hits, Big Hits and Huge Hits - this title is then always followed by the year of release; for example, Fresh Hits '97.

In December 2000, Hits 2001 was released and this indicated that the following year there would be a continuation of the standard release pattern of New, Fresh, Big and Huge Hits. However, there was a failed attempt at refreshing the Hits brand once again. The compilers decided to rename Hits to Music: The Definitive Hits Collection, and the new series was billed to contain a much broader range of chart hits designed to appeal to buyers of the hugely successful and long-running Now That's What I Call Music series.

Finally, after just two volumes of Music in 2001, by the end of the year, Hits 50 was released and this saw a return to the original numbering format the Hits series had abandoned in 1989. This lasted for ten volumes and continued to Hits 60, after which, there was a return to having random Hits-titles once again. But by 2006, almost twenty two years after the first Hits Album was released, the tired brand could not compete with the Now series. A tendency to edit down tracks to shorten the running time also damaged the success of the later Hits albums. Seen as no longer profitable or relevant, the last ever Hits album was called Summer Hits 2006 and this left the Now That's What I Call Music series as the only hits compilation brand still going strong on the UK Compilation Album chart as of November 2012.