by Jason Wilson
So it has come to this. The Foo Fighters are releasing a greatest hits album. In general, I have a disdain for greatest hits records. More often than not, all it is is a re-packaging of the singles heard round the world a million times over. It seems superfluous to the hardcore fan of the band as we likely have all their records anyway. Compilation records of a band rarely work unless they are a live album/dvd.
In this case fans will probably be swayed into buying it anyway because the catch is that two new songs will be released along with it. Wheels and Word Forward, the former will soon have a video. So the die hards like me will probably shell out the $20 for the deluxe edition just to make the purchase worthwhile (it comes with a DVD of live video).
To give you a little context. In 1997, I was in the eighth grade. Until that time my exposure to music was very limited. I had probably heard of Led Zeppelin and also heard them but to bring a song to the artist would be impossible at that time. Plus I had decided I would be a country music fan and to my current disdain I listened to Alan Jackson and Shania Twain (should have been listening to Michael Jackson while reading Mark Twain…I’m reaching a bit here).
Around this time, certain friends of mine decided to have an intervention. They forced me to sit down and listen to what they called “alternative rock”. They played Green Day’s Dookie and No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom. I liked them both after repeated listens in what is not quite a atmosphere from the classical conditioning sequence from A Clockwork Orange but it was close. Tragic Kingdom struck a chord specifically (though I thought what was soon to become their big hit single, Don’t Speak was the weakest track) due to the horns and poppy ska beat. To this day I love a good horn section. On a side note, check out The World Inferno Friendship Society.
While I had realized country music (or at least the pap of the country music world I was listening to) was not as good as I had once figured, I still hadn’t attached myself to a band in the rock world. I had missed the grunge movement by a few years but I was just on time to catch the Foo Fighters’ second album, The Colour and the Shape. Hanging out at my friend’s house one afternoon watching MuchMusic (when Bill Welychka was on…ah the good ole days) the video for Monkey Wrench came on and I was hooked. The song is raw and loud but with an incredibly catchy melody. It blended what I loved about ska with the hard rock sensibilities my friends were trying to force feed into me. The video was an odd and funny dreamlike vision about fighting with yourself and being your own worst enemy (or at least that’s what I took from it).
“They did that video Footos, right?” I asked my friend before I knew the name of that song to be Big Me.
“Yeah, they’re alright I guess,” he said.
It’s been that way for most of the 12 years since. I became a massive Foo Fighters fan while my friends all seemed rather apathetic. One friend loved the self titled record and has abhorred everything since. Another friend was on board for The Colour and the Shape and hasn’t cared since. A third friend adored There is Nothing Left to Lose and has been a fairly interested fan since, but not like me. Sure there are likely bigger Foo fans out there who have traveled long distance hundreds of times to see them (I’ve only seem them twice) but from my rinky dink small town I would bet dollars to donuts that I am the biggest fan of that band.
That said, a greatest hits record is not made for the hardcore fan. It’s made for the casual fan looking for all the hits they’ve already heard but with none of the effort it takes to get to know each album. That’s fine. In some cases it might even open the door to someone checking out the other lesser known tracks. It’s unlikely though as I have never once bought a CCR record since I acquired their Chronicle record.
On September 21, Rolling Stone’s website had an article (linked at the top) with the announcement of the tracklisting.
“All My Life”
“Best Of You”
“Everlong”
“The Pretender”
“My Hero”
“Learn To Fly”
“Times Like These”
“Monkeywrench”
“Big Me”
“Breakout”
“Long Road To Ruin”
“This is a Call”
“Skin and Bones”
“Wheels”
“Word Forward”
“Everlong (acoustic)”
Yep. Two versions of Everlong and not one of I’ll Stick Around, Alone and Easy Target, Hey Johnny Park, Stacked Actors, etc. Just once I think it’d be nice to see a greatest hits include some of the non-single favourites just to give it a little extra flavour or even an opportunity to surprise the casual fan who buys these cash grabs. I’d much rather have a new album but hey, two songs ain’t bad. For the hardcore fan it’s a disappointment, to the casual it probably doesn’t even register on the radar. At least Primus is re-releasing Frizzle Fry on vinyl in November, that might help me forget this. Okay, it’s not like this is a tragedy or anything, just a disappointment considering the Foo Fighters turned me into a rock and roll fan, it just seems cheap to me.
Greatest Hits collections are time capsules often released by the record labels with little consent of the artists. (I can’t source this fact). Obviously the labels would prefer you buy the new collection immediately that’s why they now included new material. Fuck that, if I’m hardcore I already own the whole collection and I’ll just download the new tracks.
You hit the nail on the head with CCR Chronicle. Cat Stevens, Chicago, Fleetwood Mac, Heart, Foreigner, James Taylor, Skynard, Queen, Ramones, Eagles, Steve Miller Band, The Police, Thin Lizzy. These are all bands whose only album in my collection are GH collections.
I’m well aware that there are other songs they’ve done that are more worthy, more valuable, more worth my time but that catalogue alone would take way, way too long for me to have gone through at that point in my youth. I listened to those GH albums for many hours but the truth of the matter is that they did not get my full attention.
You see, I was occupied listening to STP Purple over and again all fucking month. I was melting at the mysterious harmonies of every Alice in Chains album. When I wasn’t metaphorically drinking myself to a stupor with Blue Rodeo by my side I was smashing my possessions with In Utero drowning out the sound. I was pumping my fist to each Big Sugar anthem and dazzled by the poetic psychedelia of I Mother Earth.
I would wait out the long gaps between each TOOL album by listening to the other TOOL albums.
Obviously you get the point that I have a generation of music. By now almost all of those bands have had a GH offering and almost all of them I disputed the decisions of what should have been there and what should not have been. I have enjoyed every new track released on these collections and I have cursed the assholes that forced me to buy the collections just for that new track.
But the fact remains that now, the internet age, the itunes era, that we don’t need to get ripped off like that any more. We may very well be witnessing the end of the GH era but it will take record labels many more years to catch on. Perhaps all they really need to do is just release an official playlist that you can download from itunes, etc.
In the 90’s I loved GH collections because they did just that: they put all the songs of a particular artist that I wanted to hear right in my hands. Now, 15 years later I hate GH collections because they offend the purist in me. They insult me and my money.
Even still, I would never offer a snobby reaction to anybody who would buy one. If the people want to give my favourite bands a try then that’s a good place to start. I’d like to say that a bands first album should be a good place to start but that’s the same for everyone.
I sincerely hope that kids will buy an AIC, STP, OLP, IME, TOOL, Nirvana, Blue Rodeo, Big Sugar etc greatest hits 20 years down the road. I really hope they don’t stop there and keep getting other albums by the same artists but I respect that 20 years from now is a completely different time and if a Foo Fighters GH album can touch anybody’s heart then hell yes. Job started.
Should I have submitted a “reply to Jason Wilson’s Greatest hits?” article, instead?
Well said John. Greatest hits are a double edged sword, we all benefit from them but at the same time there is something inherently evil about them.
I can second your statement about how most of the time the record company releases the greatest hits records without artist consent or collaboration. They are a cash grab, but even cash grabs can enrich our lives. Where would I be without Steve Miller band’s Greatest Hits? Where I ask you?