I understand it when you make enough hit songs to put out additional albums,
That makes sense.

But putting out albums with
Five or seven songs that everyone has heard for 20 years and adding three songs that new but not hits yet ,
Kinda ain't right.

It's less "bands" putting them out and more "record labels" putting them out. The labels realize that, especially on an old band, compilations make more money than new music. And labels buy, sell, and trade the rights to these artists' music all of the time.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
But putting out albums with
Five or seven songs that everyone has heard for 20 years and adding three songs that new but not hits yet ,
Kinda ain't right.

I agree, but to YellowJacket's point, many artists were not on the same page as the record labels in these best of albums. For instance, The Stones and the Eagles were not too happy with their labels putting out compilation albums Hot Rocks and Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, but these are their best selling albums. So even though they think it is a sell-out in releasing these products, the bands made a shit ton of money on them. But then you'll have some artists who will put out greatest hits packages to fulfill the remainder of a contract so they can move to another label with their new material.

I prefer a Live concert recording in lieu of a Greatest Hits release.
You get the most popular songs and an excitement not usually captured in a studio complilation.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I prefer a Live concert recording in lieu of a Greatest Hits release.
You get the most popular songs and an excitement not usually captured in a studio complilation.

generally speaking, so do I ,

however I saw George Thurogood once after he had released a greatest hits live album, and his show was basically like some one played the album and they acted on stage

even the adlib between songs was almost identical to the live album,



kinda lame,



however, back to the original point, back in the day, folks bought singles or albums,

lots just bought singles, so they never heard the other 9 or so songs in an album,


so the greatists hits albums got folks buying an album full of singles, or hits, vs having to sort thru the various songs (many gems) on an album