• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

"Greatest Hits" on Vinyl or Original Albums

mhainz

mhainz

Well-Known Member
Hi there.

as a relative newcomer to the world of music on vinyl I'm relatively inexperienced when it comes to hunting down good pressings, first releases etc. I found myself today in a used record store and I started to wonder about the quality of so-called Greatest Hits albums from artists. Would the quality be as good as the original albums from where these songs came, or would it (like with the original albums) come down to when and where they were made?

For example I picked up Deep Purple's "Deepest Purple". Sounds fine to me when I play it but would the original Deep Purple albums sound better?

Am I making sense? Am I just over-thinking the whole thing? Am I going crazy? :sigh:

Your thoughts and opinions please...
 
Register to hide this ad
I've had greatest hits LPs that sounded pretty good. The thing I have against these packages are they are very subjective and they also break up the continuity of the original albums. I listen to 60s and 70s rock. Many of these albums were meant to be listened to as a whole package. Songs were placed in the order they are in for a reason. The greatest hits usually does not have that cohesiveness that the original has. Many greatest hits records have glaring omissions from the group's offerings. You also lose the lesser known songs from the regular LPs that can be as good or better than their hits.

If you are a casual fan of a group or you are not familiar with their material and you're not sure if you'll like them, the greatest hits lets you get an idea what they've produced over the years.
 
Last edited:
bobsvinyl said:
I've had greatest hits LPs that sounded pretty good. The thing I have against these packages are they are very subjective and they also break up the continuity of the original albums. I listen to 60s and 70s rock. Many of these albums were meant to be listened to as a whole package. Songs were placed in the order they are in for a reason. The greatest hits usually does not have that cohesiveness that the original has. Many greatest hits records have glaring omissions from the group's offerings. You also lose the lesser known songs from the regular LPs that can be as good or better than their hits.

If you are a casual fan of a group or you are not familiar with their material and you're not sure if you'll like them, the greatest hits lets you get an idea what they've produced over the years.
Click to expand...
Mirrored my sentiments. I've always found greatest-hits compilations to be a cash-grab and little more.
 
bobsvinyl said:
...

If you are a casual fan of a group or you are not familiar with their material and you're not sure if you'll like them, the greatest hits lets you get an idea what they've produced over the years.
Click to expand...

This ^ is about right but now we have the Net for sampling a band.

Like all things analogue , some are good and some are not.

One thing I have noticed is that original albums will often have a different sonic signature to each other which doesn't always work well when they're jumbled up with each other.
 
E.Man said:
One thing I have noticed is that original albums will often have a different sonic signature to each other which doesn't always work well when they're jumbled up with each other.
Click to expand...

+1 on that one... many bands "evolved" their "sound" over a 20 year career, as did recording/mastering technology, and a greatest hits compilation can have some whopping differences in both that just don't sound right when tracks are placed right next to one another.
 
Some of them can be pretty incredible...the double Steely Dan "Gold" comes immediately to mind. Bob Ludwig mastering...just plain great.
 
Bobsvinyl is absolutely right, but his point is an editorial one, not a technical one. Song choice, song context, the "mood," etc are all massively important when listening to music of any kind on any format; and those things are often missing (or at least lacking) with a greatest hits compilation.

The OP asked about sound quality, and thus I believe is looking for a technical answer.. So, my own opinion on the matter is that in terms of sound quality, if the greatest hits comp is on the same label (or same family of labels) as the original recordings, you stand a really good chance at getting some good quality. Try to avoid the obvious made-for-the-discount-bin stuff and you should be fine.
 
Sam the Sham and the Pharoes 'greatest hits' is really great! Like the greatest - greatest hits. It's pretty great as far as greatest hits goes.
 
I have several greatest hits lp's that sound as good as any non specialty pressing that I own. In particular Steely Dan's GH is marvelous, and it's just a normal pressing (non-RL). The Alan Parsons Project GH Vol 1 is very, very good sonically. My copy of War's GH is also some decent ear candy. I have a hard time thinking of a GH album that I own that is truly sub par sonically.
 
El Pee said:
Bobsvinyl is absolutely right, but his point is an editorial one, not a technical one. Song choice, song context, the "mood," etc are all massively important when listening to music of any kind on any format; and those things are often missing (or at least lacking) with a greatest hits compilation.

The OP asked about sound quality, and thus I believe is looking for a technical answer.. So, my own opinion on the matter is that in terms of sound quality, if the greatest hits comp is on the same label (or same family of labels) as the original recordings, you stand a really good chance at getting some good quality. Try to avoid the obvious made-for-the-discount-bin stuff and you should be fine.[/QUOTE

Yeah, I kind of wandered off the path there. :D I started off commenting about sound quality but then this soap box showed up. :yes:
Click to expand...
 
Part of the joy of vinyl is continuity in an 'album', as it was meant to be heard. Greatest Hits cheats the listener of that. Sound quality suffers a bit maybe from age, but Id rather have a 40 year old original rather than a greatest hits repressed later in time for a re-release. (...And Im 38, I largely missed vinyl the first time around in favor of cassettes, the original MTV generation, the greatest hits mentality, and the napster-ification of a generation before they sold their souls to Apple for an i-Life......)

Listen to John Lee Hooker's Endless Boogie, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours or Dylan's Blood on the Tracks.......there is a continuity in the original album that is a great listening experiance never duplicated by their 'Hits'.

Another joy of vinyl is discovering an artist's back catalog, much of which was never released on CD. One of my favorite albums is a Thelonius Monk find for $3.

Never would have heard it without (original) vinyl.
 
I've noticed on "Greatest hits" LPs that some are fairly cheesy. But it seems to be the ones released years later. Sort of a blast from the past type of thing. Like the info-mercial stuff. "greatest hits of the 60s" type.

Some of the actual ones put out by the original record label are not bad. BUT, there are those that threw live tracks together with studio tracks and listening to those is a bit lousy.

One that comes to mind that IS pretty good is Nazareth "Hot Tracks". IT is a "best of" LP but it is also one of their best LPs.

I think Three Dog Night "Golden Biscuits" was a winner too.

The "Best of Scorpions" (not sure if its the first or Vol 2), sucks royally!
 
bobsvinyl said:
Yeah, I kind of wandered off the path there. :D I started off commenting about sound quality but then this soap box showed up. :yes:
Click to expand...

Nah dude, you were exactly on point and exactly right, there are just more than one 'point' to be addressed.
 
Some bands only had a few good songs and maybe a greatest hits LP works for them but a band with good song writers and a large catalog have lots of deep tracks/hidden gems that will never show up on greatest hits albums.
 
If a record sounds fine to you, then that is all that matters. You may find later that the original record sounds better sonically than the GH release, but until you get the original perhaps the GH is fine enough.
I have a few GH LP's that I listen to regularly, although I do agree that at least " back in the day" that most albums were arranged in a specific order and with a certain sonic texture. Being a Dylan fan I could point to quite different sonic textures on say Blood on the Tracks and Desire compared to Planet Waves and Street Legal.

Another consideration perhaps is "Bonus Material" added to the original LP's arrangement. Perhaps this is more for CD releases but I believe there are a few reissue LP's with Bonus Material added as I did pick up the reissue of Buddy Holly and the Crickets 1st LP with bonus material and different song arrangement from the original. This can really change completely the mood of an original release, and usually I have found not for the better.

Anyway if it sounds good to you, listen to it.:music:
 
Thanks for all your ideas and input. Yeah what I was actually getting at was the technical differences but I agree with the comments about the continuity of songs on an album.

Cheers.
 
I posted this in another thread, but the only GH that comes to mind that really stands out for me is "This is the Moody Blues" everything goes together in such a way that the album completely stands on its own merit.

So many are just thrown together strings of hits with no sense of timing or mood.
 
GH albums are almost always made from dubs, so sound quality is rubbish. For an introductory, you'd be well advised to purchase a band's best critiqued album rather than GH.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom