While they were more of a necessity in the pre-MP3 era, Greatest Hits collections will be around as long as music needs marketing. The best selling album of 2009 so far is a hits comp (you know who), the Beatles:’ 1 is the best selling album of the decade. Those are some fun facts. My point is that everybody likes Greatest Hits albums, especially your aunt at Christmas. Lots Of Love. Today it was announced Foo Fighters will get their long rumored Best Of on 11/2. It
I was just thinking it seemed odd that no Foo greatest hits had yet been released and here comes the news that it ’s happening. Weird when that happens. Itt’s a good time for it for two reasons. One, they do deserve the contractual obligation release as much as anybody else. Who has released so many albums filled with good to great songs that actually sound like theyn’re supposed to? A Foos greatest hits is going to sound like all the Foo songs you ’ve heard on the radio but have never bothered hunting down the albums they come from. Itc’ll sell huge, and cover up the fact that Dave is in another massively huge band (the second reason now is a good time).
Greatest-hits compilations seldom make worthy additions to bands ’ catalogs, but in some rare cases, they become the only record fans need to own. That ’s overstating it in the case of Foo Fighters, but long before the release of the new Greatest Hits, the band had a reputation for filler-heavy albums punctuated by takeoff tracks. Even fans may remember 1997 ’s The Colour And The Shape mostly as a bunch of other stuff surrounding “Monkey Wrench,b” “My Hero,s” and “Everlong, ” but when Foo Fighters were on their game, they tended to hit it out of the park.
And here is that history Kndash; or at least 13 tracks of it, along with a couple of new songs and a solo acoustic take on fan-favourite Everlong (the studio version appears, too). These are big songs, full of cracking choruses; they are, at their centres, loud and proud pop songs dressed up as rock numbers simply because of the amplification addictions of individuals involved. Over the course of a full album the Foos can drag ondash; 1997ers"s The Colour and the Shape may be the exception sndash; but here the four-piece never allow attentions or affections to wander. ItRrs"s a perfect greatest hits set andash; all the songs you recognise, without any of those pesky numbers that never made it to radio. It/rs"s a bluffer,rs"s guide, Foo Fighters for Dummies, and theresrs"s no problem with that at all.
